From Surveillance Drones to Jet-Powered Weapons How a Lucknow Startup Built the Divyastra Mk3 in Four Years

A small defence company from Lucknow has reached a milestone that goes far beyond another drone taking to the sky.

On August 11, 2026, Kawa UAV Pvt. Ltd., operating under the brand HoverIt, conducted the maiden flight of its Divyastra Mk3, a jet-powered loitering munition. The company says the aircraft was powered by an indigenous jet engine developed by Delhi-based DG Propulsion and that the platform flew without an imported jet engine or foreign critical subsystem.

If the company’s claims are sustained through further testing and qualification, the flight represents an important development in India’s private-sector defence ecosystem: a young company moved from comparatively conventional unmanned surveillance systems into a far more demanding combination of airframe, propulsion and autonomous strike technology.

The bigger story, however, is not simply that another Indian drone has been developed. It is that two young Indian companies appear to have combined capabilities that have traditionally been difficult to build domestically: a military unmanned aircraft and a compact indigenous jet engine.

How Kawa UAV Moved From Surveillance to the Divyastra Mk3

Kawa UAV was incorporated in August 2022. Corporate records identify Saurav Singh Bhadauria, Ravinder Pal Singh and Pawan Pandey as its directors.

The company began with unmanned aerial systems aimed at surveillance and other defence applications before expanding into loitering munitions under the Divyastra family.

Its earlier platforms included Aankh, a compact surveillance UAV associated with thermal imaging, along with Raftaar and Baaz, according to company and industry descriptions. The progression eventually led to the Divyastra Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3.

That evolution is significant because surveillance drones and jet-powered loitering munitions involve very different engineering demands.

A surveillance platform can be designed around endurance, stable flight and sensor payloads. A jet-powered strike platform introduces another layer of complexity, particularly around propulsion integration, high-speed flight, thermal management, structural loads and flight-control requirements.

The Divyastra Mk3 therefore represents a substantial escalation in engineering ambition.

The Difficult Part Was Not Just the Drone

The Mk3 required something Kawa had not previously needed in the same way: jet propulsion.

Rather than relying on an imported engine, Kawa worked with DG Propulsion, an Indian aerospace propulsion company founded in 2019 by Prateek Dhawan and Chirag Gupta.

DG Propulsion’s development story itself began around small gas turbines and compact jet engines. IIT Madras’ Shaastra reported in 2024 that the company had designed, developed and tested a 40-kg-thrust engine and was working on compact engines intended for unmanned applications.

That matters because small turbojet development is not simply a matter of making a smaller version of a commercial aircraft engine.

At the heart of a jet engine are rotating components, compressors, combustion systems and turbines operating under demanding temperature, pressure and rotational-speed conditions. Materials, manufacturing tolerances, balancing and repeatable testing can become as important as the basic design.

For an unmanned aircraft, the propulsion system also has to fit within tight constraints involving weight, size, fuel consumption and reliability.

India’s First Indigenous Jet-Powered Loitering Munition to Fly

Kawa says the Divyastra Mk3 is India’s first indigenous jet-powered loitering munition to take flight.

The maiden flight took place on August 11 at a designated testing airstrip in Uttar Pradesh. The company announced the achievement publicly on August 16.

Several reports described the achievement as the first flight of an indigenously designed, developed and manufactured jet-powered loitering munition in India.

The company has also said the programme moved from its beginning in 2026 to a maiden flight within the same calendar year. Some reports describe the development timeline as less than eight months.

That is an unusually compressed development cycle for a system combining an unmanned aircraft with a new propulsion technology.

It is important, however, to distinguish between a successful maiden flight and a fully operational weapon system. A first flight demonstrates that an aircraft can become airborne and perform within the parameters of that test. Operational deployment requires substantially more testing, validation, qualification, production maturity and regulatory and military acceptance.

Why Jet Propulsion Changes the Equation

Most small UAVs rely on electric motors or piston engines because they are relatively simple, efficient and easier to integrate.

Jet propulsion offers a different set of possibilities.

A compact turbojet can deliver significantly different speed and power characteristics from a conventional propeller-driven system. That can be valuable for platforms designed around rapid response and precision strike.

But the advantages come with engineering costs.

Jet engines operate at high temperatures and rotational speeds. The propulsion system must maintain stable operation while the aircraft changes speed, altitude and flight conditions. The aircraft itself must also be designed around the aerodynamic and structural requirements created by higher-speed flight.

This makes the Mk3 more than a cosmetic upgrade to an existing drone design. It represents a shift in the underlying engineering architecture.

The DG Propulsion Connection Is Perhaps the More Important Story

The most interesting part of the Divyastra Mk3 story may ultimately be the engine.

India has built sophisticated aircraft, missiles and launch vehicles for decades, but indigenous propulsion has repeatedly remained one of the country’s most challenging aerospace technology areas.

That is why companies such as DG Propulsion matter.

The company emerged from work on small gas turbines and compact jet engines and has focused on propulsion systems for unmanned applications. IIT Madras’ Shaastra reported that DG Propulsion deliberately began with smaller engines, targeting the requirements of uncrewed systems.

The Divyastra Mk3 provides a real aircraft platform on which that propulsion capability can be demonstrated.

In other words, Kawa supplied the aircraft-development problem while DG Propulsion supplied a critical piece of the propulsion challenge.

That type of collaboration can become important as India’s defence industry moves from individual prototypes toward a broader network of specialised private suppliers.

Lucknow Is Becoming More Important to India’s Defence Manufacturing Map

The location is significant as well.

The Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor was established as part of India’s broader effort to reduce foreign dependence in aerospace and defence manufacturing. The corridor has six nodes: Lucknow, Kanpur, Jhansi, Agra, Aligarh and Chitrakoot.

Lucknow is specifically identified within the corridor’s plans for aerospace-related activity, including an aerospace hub and aero-engine cluster.

The ecosystem is also expanding around unmanned systems. The Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor says the state is developing dedicated UAV infrastructure and integrated UAS testing capabilities, while the corridor’s official programme includes drones, AI-based platforms, precision manufacturing and defence testing among its planned domains.

That infrastructure matters because advanced defence products cannot be built by an individual startup in isolation.

They require testing facilities, component suppliers, engineering talent, manufacturing partners, certification capabilities and access to specialised equipment.

The Four-Year Story Is Really About Capability Building

It would be easy to describe Kawa’s journey simply as a startup building a new drone.

The more important interpretation is capability accumulation.

The company began with surveillance-oriented UAVs, developed additional unmanned platforms, moved into loitering munitions and then tackled jet propulsion through a domestic technology partner.

Each step required another layer of engineering knowledge.

That is how defence ecosystems tend to mature: not necessarily through one giant breakthrough, but through companies learning to solve increasingly difficult problems and creating suppliers capable of solving the next one.

The Divyastra Mk3 is therefore a useful example of that progression.

What Happens After the Maiden Flight?

The August flight is a milestone, but it is not the end of the programme.

A military aircraft must undergo extensive evaluation before it can be considered ready for operational use. Reliability, repeatability, flight performance, propulsion endurance, environmental conditions, manufacturing consistency and system-level validation all become important as development progresses.

Kawa has announced the maiden flight, but publicly available information does not establish that the Divyastra Mk3 has entered operational service or received final military induction.

That distinction is important when assessing the significance of the programme.

The achievement today is the successful flight of an Indian-developed jet-powered loitering munition, not proof that the system has already completed every stage required for operational deployment.

A New Kind of Indian Defence Startup

India’s defence industry is increasingly becoming a combination of large public-sector organisations, established private manufacturers, MSMEs and younger technology companies.

The UP Defence Industrial Corridor is explicitly designed to reduce foreign dependence and build an ecosystem around indigenous manufacturing. It includes dedicated plans for aerospace, drones, propulsion, precision manufacturing and testing.

Against that backdrop, Kawa’s story illustrates what the newer generation of Indian defence startups can potentially contribute.

They can begin with a relatively focused capability, build engineering expertise, work with specialist suppliers and progressively attempt more difficult systems.

The Divyastra Mk3’s maiden flight does not mean India’s propulsion or unmanned warfare challenges are solved.

But it demonstrates something potentially more valuable: a private Indian company was able to take an increasingly complex aerospace concept from development to flight, while partnering with another Indian company for a critical propulsion technology.

That is the kind of industrial capability that can eventually turn a defence ecosystem from one that primarily assembles imported technologies into one that increasingly designs, builds and integrates them domestically.

For India’s defence manufacturing ambitions, that may be the bigger milestone behind the aircraft now flying over Uttar Pradesh.