IN ITS maiden voyage, India’s first homegrown private orbital rocket,Vikram-1 Test Flight-1 on Saturday successfully placed multiple technology demonstration payloads and postcards, including from Prime Minister Narendra Modi into a low Earth orbit, with the PM calling the mission as a “defining moment” in the country’s space journey. Dubbed ‘Mission Aagaman’ (arrival), it marks the entry of India’s private space sector into the orbital launch market, spearheaded by Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace. The mission was a “grand success,” the company said. The four-stage, seven-storeytall Vikram-1 rocket lifted off majestically at 12.05 pm amid cloudy skies from the first launch pad of ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre, leaving behind plumes of orange smoke and marking a new era from this spaceport. A“planned hold” due to apparent navigation issues forced a revised launch time of 12.05 pm, as against the originally planned 11.30 am.

 

After its ascent, the primary payloads -- technology demonstrators from Grahaa Space, Cosmoserve, DCubed, and Skyroot’s SCOPE -- were sequentially deployed into a 450 km Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The launch vehicle also successfully deployed a micro-art payload, an 18-karat gold rocket and a handwritten postcard rockets and engines after these icons,” it added. CEO and cofounder of Skyroot Aerospace, Pawan Kumar Chandana and co-founder Naga Bharath Daka were present at the ISRO’s Mission Control Centre (MCC) for the launch. Chandana informed that the rocket was completely designed and made in India. Referring to PM Modi’s post card bearing the message “Vande Mataram,” a slogan which the launch vehicle carried to a low Earth orbit of 450 km, Chandana said “your card has successfully reached orbit. Vande Mataram is in orbit.” Chandana said, “we are very proud that the Government has enabled us and opened up the sector to private players, and now we stand as India’s first private company which has launched a rocket to orbit and also created a global milestone.

 

All from India with a fully, fully Indian team, 100 per cent built in India.” Daka said India was the third country, after the US and China with private sector launch capability. ISRO chief V Narayanan credited PM Modi for opening up the space sector for the startup ecosystem of the country. “In 2020, the space sector reform was announced. Today, within six years, a startup company has successfully placed the satellite in the first attempt in the orbit. It is really a great, satisfying moment,” he said. He also lauded the young team of Skyroot Aerospace, saying “it was told the average age is 28 years.” According to the company, the engineering data collected during this test flight will be analysed to validate guidance and navigation systems, and to guide future refinements for commercial satellite missions. With its Saturday mission, Skyroot Aerospace successfully demonstrated its orbital launch capability with the maiden flight of the Vikram-1 launch vehicle, moving beyond the suborbital flight achieved by its Vikram-S mission in 2022. The successful flight validated the performance of the rocket’s all-carbon composite structure and 3D-printed engines in a real flight environment, features claimed by the company as ‘first’.

 

This historic milestone is expected to strengthen India’s position in the fast-growing global small satellite launch market, expanding the country’s presence in space alongside ISRO. The payloads that piggybacked Vikram-1 include Cosmoserve Space’ Embrace (mission name), an in-orbit demonstration of robotic arms capable of removing space debris, Solaras by Grahaa Space which is a compact satellite mission developed to demonstrate new capabilities in LEO. According to the company, Scope satellite by Skyroot Aerospace is an in-house experimental payload developed to test space technologies in future missions. Cosmic Bloom, an “artistic lab-grown diamond” by Cosmos Diamonds and German test payload uD3PP and mD3RN by Dcubed also reached the space on Saturday.