HoverIt's Divyastra Mk3 flies: India's first fully indigenous jet-powered loitering munition takes off

On 11 August 2026, a small defence startup in Lucknow put an aircraft into the sky that it says India has never built before: a loitering munition driven by a home-grown jet engine. The company, Kawa UAV Pvt. Ltd. — which markets its systems under the brand HoverIt — announced the successful maiden flight of the Divyastra Mk3 on 16 August, describing it as the country's first fully indigenous, jet-powered loitering munition to fly.

If the claim holds through the validation trials that lie ahead, it marks a notable step for a segment of Indian defence manufacturing that has, until now, leaned heavily on imported propulsion.

What flew, and why it matters

A loitering munition — often called a "kamikaze" or "suicide" drone — is a weapon that can circle over a target area before diving onto a target. Most Indian systems in this class run on electric motors or small piston engines. Jet propulsion is a different proposition: it promises higher speed and the ability to reach targets faster over longer distances, but it also demands a far more difficult piece of engineering — a compact turbine that can be built, qualified and flown reliably.

That is the part HoverIt says is now entirely Indian. The Divyastra Mk3 is powered by a jet engine developed by DG Propulsion, an Indian propulsion firm. According to the company, the platform was designed, built and flown "without an imported jet engine or foreign critical subsystems" — a claim that, if borne out, would place the system in the 100% Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured (IDDM) category that India's defence procurement rules increasingly favour.

"Built in India. Flown in India," the company said in its announcement. "This is more than a flight. This is Atmanirbhar Bharat in action."

From concept to flight in under a year

Perhaps the most striking part of the story is the timeline. HoverIt says the Divyastra Mk3 moved from a blank-page concept to a fully airborne weapon system in under a year — with the platform itself taking shape over roughly eight months. For a jet-powered system built around a domestic engine, that is an unusually compressed development cycle, and it reflects the way a new generation of Indian defence startups is trying to iterate at the pace of the software world rather than the traditional decade-long acquisition timelines.

The speed is not incidental. India's recent operational experience — including the extensive use of drones and loitering munitions during Operation Sindoor — has sharpened the military's appetite for cheap, precise, mass-producible strike systems that can be built entirely at home, insulated from export controls and supply-chain chokepoints. A jet-powered loitering munition with an indigenous engine speaks directly to that requirement.

The propulsion problem India is trying to solve

Engines have long been the Achilles' heel of Indian aerospace. From fighter aircraft to drones, the country has repeatedly found itself dependent on foreign turbines even when the airframe and electronics were Indian. That dependence matters most in wartime, when a supplier's decision to withhold spares or software can ground an entire fleet.

By pairing HoverIt's airframe with DG Propulsion's engine, the Divyastra Mk3 is, in effect, a test case for whether India's private sector can close that gap for small jet-class systems. Success here would not only give the armed forces a new weapon; it would validate a domestic supply chain — engine, airframe, guidance and control — that could feed a family of faster, longer-reach munitions.

A widening indigenous drone push

The Divyastra Mk3 arrives amid a broader surge in Indian unmanned-systems activity. In mid-August, the Indian Army signed contracts worth about ₹1,577 crore with Tata Advanced Systems and NIBE Defence for 840 long-range attack drones designed to operate through heavy jamming. Startups and public-sector firms alike are racing to field loitering munitions, counter-drone interceptors and swarming systems, many of them backed by the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) programme and the Technology Development Fund.

What sets the HoverIt effort apart is its focus on propulsion sovereignty rather than just airframe or autonomy. It is one thing to assemble a drone in India; it is another to fly one on an Indian jet engine.

What comes next

A maiden flight is a milestone, not a finish line. The Divyastra Mk3 will now have to work through further validation trials — demonstrating range, endurance, terminal accuracy, warhead integration and resistance to electronic warfare — before it can be considered for induction. HoverIt has not publicly disclosed the system's detailed specifications, and independent verification of its performance envelope will come only as trials progress.

Still, the significance of the day is hard to miss. For years, "Made in India" defence hardware has often meant an Indian body around a foreign heart. A jet-powered loitering munition that flew on an Indian engine, built by a startup in under a year, is a small but concrete sign that the heart, too, is starting to be built at home.

Sources

• ANI News — "Kawa UAV successfully conducts maiden flight of jet-powered 'Divyastra Mk3' loitering munition" (16 August 2026): https://www.aninews.in/news/national/general-news/kawa-uav-successfully-conducts-maiden-flight-of-jet-powered-divyastra-mk3-loitering-munition20260816124753/
• Business Today — "Divyastra Mk3: Lucknow defence startup tests India's first fully indigenous jet powered loitering munition" (16 August 2026): https://www.businesstoday.in/india/story/divyastra-mk3-lucknow-defence-startup-tests-indias-first-fully-indigenous-jet-powered-loitering-munition-549461-2026-08-16
• Zee News — "Kawa UAV achieves key milestone with successful maiden flight of the jet-powered 'Divyastra Mk3'": https://zeenews.india.com/india/kawa-uav-achieves-key-milestone-with-successful-maiden-flight-of-the-jet-powered-divyastra-mk3-3066753.html
• The Week — "Divyastra MK3 test flight successful: How this indigenous suicide drone lives up to its name" (17 August 2026): https://www.theweek.in/news/defence/2026/08/17/divyastra-mk3-test-flight-india-indigenous-suicide-drone.html
• Organiser — "Kawa UAV successfully conducts maiden flight of jet-powered 'Divyastra Mk3' loitering munition" (17 August 2026): https://organiser.org/2026/08/17/375585/bharat/kawa-uav-successfully-conducts-maiden-flight-of-jet-powered-divyastra-mk3-loitering-munition/