NEW DELHI, JULY 2 (PTI): Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace on Thursday announced that a launch window between July 12 and August 4 for the maiden test flight of its Vikram-1 launch vehicle — the nation’s first privately developed orbital-class rocket.
The final date of the lift-off will be subject to the completion of assembly and testing operations at the launch site in the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, and weather, safety, and range clearance.
“We want to understand how the vehicle performs from lift-off through every phase of ascent. This data cannot be fully replicated through ground testing,” Pawan Kumar Chandana, co-founder and CEO of Skyroot Aerospace, in a statement said. “It will help us validate our designs and inform subsequent vehicle development as we build a reliable, high-cadence commercial launch programme,” he added. The mission, called “Agaman”, will gather critical data across propulsion, stage separation, guidance, navigation, control and overall vehicle performance.
Vikram-1 is a seven-storey-tall, multi-stage orbital launch vehicle built with an all-carbon composite structure and powered by in-house developed propulsion systems, including 3D-printed engines and high-thrust solid-fuel rocket boosters.
Designed to carry small satellites weighing up to 350 kg to low Earth orbit (LEO), Vikram-1’s maiden mission will target an orbit at an altitude of 450 km with a 60-degree orbital inclination. The launch will mark Skyroot’s second mission following the successful suborbital flight of Vikram-S, the first private rocket to reach space from Indian soil, on November 18, 2022.
Naga Bharath Daka, co-founder and COO, Skyroot Aerospace, said in a statement, “With Vikram-S in 2022, we validated the foundation of our technology stack; with Vikram-1, we take our biggest step yet, toward a reliable, high-cadence launch programme built in India, for India and the world.
