Skyroot Aerospace launched its Vikram-1 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Saturday, July 18, successfully placing its payload into a roughly 450 km orbit about 15 minutes after liftoff. The mission, dubbed Aagaman, makes India the third nation with private orbital launch capability, following the US and China.
Standing about 22 meters tall, Vikram-1 is built to carry payloads of up to 350 kg into low-Earth orbit. It uses three solid-fuel stages topped with a liquid-fuel orbital adjustment module powered by a 3D-printed engine, and carried several customer payloads and in-orbit experiments on its maiden flight.
Hyderabad-based Skyroot, founded in 2018, previously became the first private Indian company to reach space with its suborbital Vikram-S rocket in 2022. The successful debut of a fully orbital vehicle marks a major step for India's commercial space sector as it competes for a share of the growing global small-satellite launch market.