India has become the third country in the world to have a private orbital launch capability after the Vikram-1 rocket successfully carried out its maiden flight from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota on Saturday, paving the way for commercial spaceflights from Indian soil.
At 12.10pm, the launch vehicle indigenously developed by Skyroot Aerospace injected four test payloads of the technology at an altitude of 450 km with an orbital inclination of 60 degrees into lower Earth orbit (LEO).
“We have achieved a global breakthrough from India,” said co-founder and CEO Pawan Chandana, who founded the Hyderabad-based company with Bharat Dhaka, both Indian Institutes of Technology graduates and former ISRO scientists-turned-entrepreneurs. “I thought it wouldn’t be possible. Big shout out to the exceptional team who made it happen.”
Soon after the launch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to the Skyroot Aerospace team and congratulated them on the successful launch of Vikram-1.
“This is a defining moment in India’s space journey. The increased participation of our private sector is opening new horizons and accelerating innovation. This achievement will encourage countless young people to dream bigger and innovate fearlessly,” Modi said in a post on X.
Describing the Ajman mission as a “historic new frontier for India’s space journey”, Modi posted on
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The multi-stage launch vehicle is as tall as a seven-storey building and is designed to carry small satellites weighing up to 350 kg into low Earth orbit. The rocket is built with an all-carbon composite structure and is powered by internal propulsion systems, including 3D-printed engines and high-thrust solid-fuel boosters.
The mission will collect data across propulsion, stage separation, guidance, navigation, control and overall vehicle performance, supporting Skyroot’s evolution into a commercially operational launch vehicle.
Speaking to HT earlier this month, Pawan Kumar Chandana, co-founder and CEO of Skyroot, said the Vikram-1 is “100% designed in India, 100% manufactured in India”.
“We built it from scratch,” he said. “This means that hundreds of systems have to be developed and tested. Everything has to work together to a level where we can now stack it on the launch pad, get it ready to go and launch it. Building a rocket is the hardest feat in engineering, and it is a very deep technological product. That’s why it’s called rocket science.”
The success of the mission assumes great importance given that the value of the global space industry is about $600 billion, and India’s current share is $8 billion, and it aspires to increase this value to $44 billion by 2032.
The four technology demonstration payloads from Indian and international companies include the Solaras S3 satellite developed by Grahaa Space, a Bengaluru-based space startup incubated at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology; an in-orbit debris removal robotic arm called Embrace developed by Hyderabad-based startup Cosmoserve Space, and the Scope satellite from Skyroot; and an in-orbit demonstration from DCUBED, a German manufacturer of NewSpace devices.
In addition, rocket-carrying 18-karat gold microscopic sculptures of renowned Indian scientists Sir C.V. Raman, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and Dr. APG Abdul Kalam, each smaller than a grain of rice, designed by Ajay Kumar Mathewada, along with artwork by Cosmos Diamonds Cosmic Bloom, flew along with the payloads.
Aagaman – which means “arrival” – is Skyroot’s second mission, after the suborbital flight of Vikram-S on November 18, 2022, and is the first private rocket to reach space from Indian soil.
