Bengaluru, October 16, 2026: Ethereal Exploration Guild (The Guild) has unveiled The Anchorage, its 150-acre rocket development and testing facility in Space City, Andhra Pradesh. Strategically located approximately 40 kilometres from India’s premier spaceport, Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC SHAR) at Sriharikota, The Anchorage establishes the ground infrastructure for Razor Crest Mk 1 (RCM1), The Guild’s fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle.
RCM1 is being developed for recovery and reuse of both its booster and upper stage. Its propulsion architecture comprises two semi-cryogenic rocket engines: Pegasus, the 80 kN upper-stage engine that powers the reusable upper stage, and Stallion, the 1.2 MN gas-generator booster engine that powers lift-off and atmospheric ascent. Stallion is the world’s most powerful reusable semi-cryogenic rocket engine.
Pegasus incorporates The Guild’s Full-Flow Segregated Cooling Cycle (FSCC) and a dual thrust-chamber architecture. Developed entirely in-house, FSCC is a new rocket engine feed cycle that is the first in the history of rocketry purpose-built for upper-stage reusability. Its development addresses the thermal and operational requirements of returning an upper stage from orbit and preparing it for repeated flight.
At The Anchorage’s operational core, the commissioned Pegasus Horizontal Static Test Facility supports independent component, ignition, thrust-chamber and turbomachinery testing through to integrated engine firing. Its 210 bar pressure-fed test capability enables the team to characterise hardware and subsystem performance before evaluating the complete engine. Pegasus’s first hot-fire test is scheduled at The Anchorage in November 2026.
“The Anchorage represents a long-term investment in the capacity development required to test, manufacture and repeatedly operate Razor Crest Mk-1,” said Manu J. Nair, Co-Founder and CEO of The Guild. “Full reusability is not achieved by vehicle design alone. It demands an integrated industrial ecosystem where manufacturing, qualification and refurbishment are engineered to work together throughout the vehicle’s operational life. We are building that foundation in parallel with our engines and stages, establishing a strategically located industrial base approximately 40 kilometres from SHAR.”
The Stallion Vertical Test Facility (VTF) , currently under development, expands The Anchorage’s scope to meganewton-class booster propulsion. It will accommodate vertical firing of individual Stallion engines and clustered-engine testing, advancing from single-engine qualification to evaluating multiple engines operating together within RCM1’s booster architecture.
Beyond engine testing, planned integrated stage infrastructure will bring propulsion, propellant tanks, feed systems, structures, avionics, controls and flight software together for booster and upper-stage qualification. Stage testing will evaluate the interactions between these subsystems before the qualified stages proceed to RCM1 assembly and vehicle integration.
“An engine test establishes propulsion performance. Stage qualification examines how that propulsion system operates with the tanks, feed systems, structures, avionics and controls,” said Prashanth Sharma, Co-Founder and CTO, The Guild. “The Anchorage is being developed around this progression, from Pegasus component testing and integrated firing to Stallion engine clusters and complete stages. The resulting test data feeds directly into design decisions and hardware qualification.”
Planned manufacturing infrastructure includes stage-tank fabrication, machining, forming, welding, additive manufacturing and post-processing, alongside the development of critical cryogenic flow components. Locating manufacturing with testing and integration connects qualification findings to engineering changes, production processes and subsequent hardware iterations.
The facility’s scope extends through recovery and return to service. Planned refurbishment infrastructure will support inspection of flown booster and upper-stage hardware, assessment of operating history and remaining life, repairs or component replacement, and requalification before reflight. This places post-flight engineering alongside the manufacturing and testing activities that prepare hardware for its first mission.
The Anchorage is building India’s space technology infrastructure and capability through commissioned high-pressure propulsion testing and further capabilities under development for meganewton-class engines, clustered propulsion and integrated stages. Its continued development will establish manufacturing and refurbishment capacity around the requirements of a fully reusable launch vehicle in the medium-lift class, a capacity that has never been built before in India, and still under development in other developed countries.
Anchorage Facility Briefing and SpecsVideo: https://youtu.be/0HGOa1OTihA?si=JuL5Mxkd97wmbS80
https://youtu.be/wN3c4Zg__bw?si=ihbH3xbOBcQQzFRN
About The Guild: Founded in 2022, Ethereal Exploration Guild (The Guild) is a private space technology company headquartered in Bengaluru, India. The Guild is building Razor Crest Mk-1(RCM1), the world’s first fully reusable medium-lift rocket built around a novel feed cycle for its reusable upper stage, designed for the most ambitious commercial & sovereign satellite operators. Razor Crest Mk-1(RCM1) is being built to reduce launch costs, improve cadence reliability, and enable multi-polar access to space
