India’s first private orbital rocket is scheduled to lift off later this month. Skyroot Aerospace on Thursday announced that the Vikram-1: Mission Aagaman test flight is fully stacked at India’s historic First Launch Pad (FLP) at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
“Launch window: July 12 – August 4, 2026. The vehicle is now fully stacked on India’s historic First Launch Pad (FLP). The countdown to a new chapter in Indian spaceflight begins. One rocket, one billion secured. Thank you ISRO and INSPACE for enabling this,” said a post on the X website from the Hyderabad-based private space company.
“For India, this is the first time that a specially designed, developed and manufactured orbital rocket has been placed on this platform… Piece by piece, Vikram-1 comes to life – each stage carefully lifted, aligned, and integrated into a single flight-ready rocket. We are getting closer to launch.” Read this post.
In May, Skyroot Aerospace became the first Indian space startup to achieve unicorn status. The startup announced it has raised $60 million at a $1.1 billion pre-funding valuation. The round was co-led by venture capital firm Sherpalo Ventures, owned by early Google investor Ram Shriram, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC.
Last November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Indian space startup’s Infinity Complex in Hyderabad and unveiled SkyRoot’s first orbital rocket, Vikram-1, which has the ability to launch satellites into orbit.
Skyroot, founded by Pawan Chandana and Bharat Dhaka, both Indian Institutes of Technology graduates and former ISRO scientists turned entrepreneurs, has launched its Vikram-S suborbital rocket, becoming the first private Indian company to launch a rocket into space, according to a PMO press release.
The state-of-the-art Hyderabad-based facility spans over 2,000 square feet to enable the design, development, integration and testing of multiple launch vehicles, with the capacity to build one orbital rocket each month.
