India successfully tests first private-sector orbital rocket
India has successfully tested its first private-sector orbital rocket, marking a major milestone in the country's ambition to become a leading player in the global space economy.
The three-stage, 22-metre Vikram-1 rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota and successfully deployed customer payloads into a 450-kilometre low-Earth orbit. The mission makes India the third country to achieve orbital launch capability through a private company.
Developed by Skyroot Aerospace, Vikram-1 can carry payloads of up to 350 kilograms and is equipped with robotic arms designed to help remove space debris. The rocket also carried experimental equipment, a lab-grown diamond and a miniature 18-carat gold sculpture commemorating India's national space programme.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the achievement, saying it would “encourage countless youngsters to dream bigger and innovate fearlessly.”
According to Skyroot Aerospace, the mission successfully validated the rocket's propulsion, avionics, telemetry, guidance, navigation and control systems during flight.
Pawan Kumar Goenka, chairman of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), said the mission was the first of several privately developed launch vehicles expected from India.
“Skyroot is the first company to have done this launch. There are two other small launch vehicles that are in the pipeline which will be ready in less than one year for launching,” he said.
Skyroot co-founder Naga Bharath Daka said the launch was a major achievement for the company and the country.
“India has become the third country with a private orbital-class launch vehicle capability with this success and one of the very few, one of the rarest moments where a private sector-developed orbital rocket has been succeeded in its very first attempt. And this is a moment of great pride, not just for Skyroot but all of India,” he said.
Daka said developing the rocket took longer and cost more than expected.
“When we started, we were a bit naive in the sense we wanted to do it much faster than what we could accomplish. But it really took us double the time and double the money to actually come to where we are than what we anticipated,” he said.
He added: “The rocket is thousands of systems working together in unison, and everything has to work well to make it a success and even one failure will result in a full failure. So it's a very complex system to develop, and there was a great learning experience throughout the developmental effort of Vikram 1.”
Founded in 2018, Skyroot became India's first space-sector company to achieve a valuation of more than $1 billion earlier this year. The company plans additional test flights before beginning routine commercial launch services.
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
