Indian space officials celebrated the debut flight of Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket, India’s first fully commercial satellite launcher, as a “grand success” Saturday after an on-target climb into a 280-mile-high orbit following liftoff from an island spaceport in the Bay of Bengal.
The Vikram-1 lifted off from India’s primary spaceport on Sriharikota Island at 1:35 am EDT (06:35 UTC) Saturday, around midday at the launch base along India’s southeast coast. The launch was delayed more than a half-hour to resolve a last-minute technical problem.
The countdown resumed, culminating in the command to ignite Vikram-1’s solid-fueled first stage booster to propel the rocket off the launch pad. Vikram-1 is modest in size compared to India’s larger workhorse rockets. Skyroot’s rocket stands about 72 feet (22 meters) tall, with the capability to place payloads of up to 770 pounds (350 kilograms) into low-Earth orbit.
This makes Vikram-1 somewhat larger than the Electron launch vehicle developed by Rocket Lab, the world’s most successful dedicated small satellite launcher. The flight Saturday went off without any major problems. Three solid-fueled rocket motors fired in succession to reach space, then a small liquid-fueled fourth stage ignited and accelerated to orbital velocity, some 17,000 mph.
Live views from onboard cameras showed each phase of the launch sequence. The only sign of anything unusual came during the separation of the rocket’s third stage from its fourth stage. The spent third stage motor appeared to remain near the fourth stage during a brief coast, rather than backing away to a greater distance.
Nevertheless, the fourth stage did its job, firing its 3D-printed engine to reach an orbit approximately 280 miles (450 kilometers) high at an inclination of 60 degrees to the equator, quite close to preflight predictions, according to Skyroot Aerospace. US military tracking data confirmed the rocket’s successful arrival in orbit.
“We achieved one of the biggest milestones ever in India’s space sector—the first private orbital rocket reaching orbit on the very first attempt,” said Pawan Kumar Chandana, Skyroot’s cofounder and CEO, in remarks to the company’s launch team. “It’s still feels like a dream, and you all made this dream happen.”
The Vikram-1 is named for the Indian physicist Vikram Sarabhai, considered the father of the Indian space program. The rocket is made of lightweight carbon composite materials and stands about 72 feet (22 meters) tall.
Skyroot successfully launched a suborbital rocket, Vikram-S, to an altitude of nearly 300,000 feet (90 kilometers) in November 2022. The Vikram-1 builds on lessons learned with Vikram-S. Skyroot’s future roadmap includes the Vikram-1U, with additional strap-on solid rocket boosters to haul heavier payloads, and the Vikram-2, which will debut a cryogenic upper stage to reach a payload capacity of 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) to low-Earth orbit.
The initial purpose of the Vikram rocket family is to “deliver dedicated and responsive launch services for small satellites,” Skyroot officials wrote in the press kit for Saturday’s mission. But the company has loftier ambitions. In an interview ahead of the first Vikram-1 launch, Chandana told Ars his aspiration for Skyroot involves larger liquid-fueled fully reusable rockets, with a “daily cadence” from multiple countries.
Skyroot will need a lot more funding to realize that dream, but Saturday’s launch showed the company has ingredients required for a successful launch company. Saturday’s launch vaulted Skyroot to a plane above any other space startup in India, or, for that matter, in any country outside of the United States and China.
Skyroot has, so far, raised approximately $160 million in capital, bringing the company’s valuation to $1.1 billion. Skyroot now has more than 1,000 employees, mostly working out of the company’s headquarters in Hyderabad. The average age of Skyroot’s workforce is 28 years old.
The breakthrough launch comes as India’s government looks to promote its commercial space industry.
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