Bangalore: In an exciting end to the year for private spaceflight in India, two major announcements were made on Tuesday: Skyroute Aerospace will launch India’s first private rocket this month, while Agnikul Cosmos successfully launches its 3D-printed rocket engine. tested.
Skyroute’s mission, called Prambh, will launch between November 12 and 16. The rocket will perform a suborbital flight with three customer payloads, and test and verify the rocket’s technology. It will be launched from ISRO’s Sriharikota, from where all the orbital launches of ISRO take place. The final date will be announced closer to the launch depending on the weather conditions.
With this mission, Skyroute Aerospace will become the first private space company in India to launch a rocket. The rocket to be launched belongs to the company’s Vikram series of rockets, named after space visionary and founder of the Indian space programme, Vikram Sarabhai.
CEO and co-founder Pawan Kumar Chandana told ThePrint that with only a week left for the launch, he was feeling “excited and yet nervous”. “It took more than four years to get here with great team work at Skyroot,” he said.
In a press release, COO and co-founder Naga Bharat Daka said the rocket, a Vikram-S class, is a single-stage sub-orbital launch vehicle, and this flight will test and verify most of the technologies. Vikram Series.
The Hyderabad-based company operates with the mission of “Open Space for All” and belongs to the first group of startups to sign MoU with ISRO for access to facilities and expertise.
Meanwhile, Agnikul’s engine, called Agnilet, was tested through Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC), ISRO’s center for development of launch vehicles, and plans to make a test flight by the end of this year. hopefully.
The test was conducted for 15 seconds on 4 November at the Vertical Test Facility, Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS), Thiruvananthapuram.
The patented engine is fully 3D printed and is a second-stage semi-cryogenic engine designed to be used in the company’s fully 3D printed fireball rocket that is currently being developed. The rocket will use another patented engine in its first stage called Agnite (still to be tested).
The Agnibaan rocket, which translates to arrow of fire, will be launched by a mobile pedestal called Dhanush, which translates to bow. rocket will be tested in collaboration with Alaska Aerospace.
The Chennai-based, IIT-Madras incubated startup is set to launch the vehicle by the end of the year, CEO and co-founder Srinath Ravichandran told ThePrint.
“This engine is very close to the engine that would be on the first flight,” he said. “This successful test is a validation of our technology at ISRO’s facilities. Since the engine is quite unique, this is a huge milestone for us.”
Both the startups worked with ISRO through the newly formed in the space The regulatory agency, which was formed in 2020 to bring ISRO and private industry together.
(Edited by VS Chandrasekhar)
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