India joined the United States and China as the only countries with a successful private orbital launch capability on July 18, as Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket reached low Earth orbit on its debut flight, becoming the first commercial Indian rocket to place satellites in space.
Vikram-1 lifted off at 2:35 a.m. Eastern (7:05 a.m. local time) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota, India’s main spaceport, after a 35-minute delay caused by a technical issue discovered at the T-minus-five-minute mark in the countdown. The three solid-fuel stages performed as expected, and a liquid-propellant kick stage fired for approximately six minutes to circularize the orbit. The company declared the upper stage had reached its planned 450-kilometer (approximately 280-mile) low Earth orbit 15 minutes after liftoff.
The mission, named Aagaman (Sanskrit for “arrival”), carried two cubesats, one built by Skyroot and another by fellow Indian startup Grahaa Space, along with hosted payloads from Dcubed and Cosmoserve Space. The rocket also carried postcards signed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other dignitaries, along with a micro-art piece called “Cosmic Bloom” from Cosmos Diamonds.
The four-stage, seven-story-tall Vikram-1 is a small-satellite launcher capable of delivering approximately 350 kilograms (770 pounds) to low Earth orbit. It follows Skyroot’s Vikram-S suborbital mission in 2022, which made the company the first private Indian outfit to reach space.
“It is the dawn of a new space era,” one of Skyroot’s launch commentators said during the company’s webcast.
Skyroot Aerospace was founded in 2018 and has benefited from space sector reforms introduced by the Indian government in 2020, which opened the door for private companies to build rockets, satellites, and launch services with regulatory support from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe).
The launch is the first of three planned developmental flights that will help qualify Vikram-1 for regular commercial operations, positioning Skyroot to compete in the global small-satellite launch market.