Indian space startup Skyroot Aerospace successfully launched Vikram-1 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Saturday, marking the country's first privately developed orbital rocket mission and making India the third nation to achieve orbital launch capability through private enterprise.
The 22-metre-tall rocket lifted off at 06:35 GMT, carrying several customer payloads and in-orbit experiments on its maiden mission, dubbed "Mission Aagaman." About 15 minutes later, it successfully injected its payload into a 450 km low-Earth orbit.
"Mission Aagaman is a grand success," the company said in a statement. "This is a test flight. We will be doing a few of these before we move into routine commercial flights."
Vikram-1 uses three solid-fuel stages and a liquid-fuel orbital adjustment module powered by a 3D-printed engine — technologies being flown for the first time in India. The rocket is designed to carry payloads of up to 350 kg into low-Earth orbit.
Founded in 2018 and based in Hyderabad, Skyroot became the first Indian space-sector company to reach a $1 billion valuation earlier this year. The launch follows the company's Vikram-S suborbital mission in 2022, which was the first privately developed rocket to reach space from Indian soil.
India opened its space sector to private investment in 2020, ending decades of government monopoly by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The government aims to grow India's share of the global space economy to $44 billion by 2033 from about $8 billion currently.
The launch comes amid intensifying competition in the global small satellite launch market, where startups worldwide are seeking to challenge incumbents led by SpaceX.
