Tech Watch | Vikram-I makes space history: The private leap

Exactly 46 years after India’s first experimental satellite launch vehicle, SLV-3, successfully lifted off from Sriharikota, the space port marked another historic moment: the maiden orbital rocket launch by an Indian private company.

Lifting off at 12:05 pm this July 18, Vikram-I, the small satellite launcher developed by Hyderabad-based unicorn startup Skyroot Aerospace, carried two satellites—SCOPE and Grahaa—apart from other payloads, and injected them to a low earth orbit (LEO). India is just the third country, after the US and China, to have a privately developed orbital rocket launch. The icing on the cake for Skyroot: getting it right on the first attempt. Even Elon Musk’s SpaceX took four attempts to get Falcon-1 to orbit in 2008.

Skyroot, founded in 2018 by two IITians and ex-ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) hands, Pawan Kumar Chandana, 35, and Naga Bharath Daka, 36, flew its first test rocket in 2022. Subsequently, it developed Vikram-1 with three solid stages and a liquid stage to launch small satellites to LEO, with hand-holding by ISRO. With $160 million (Rs 1,541.3 crore) in funding so far, the start-up’s stated mission is to redefine ‘access to space’ and fill a gap in the global launch market. The global space economy, valued at $596 billion in 2024, is projected to exceed $1.8 trillion by 2035. India’s share in this market is now nearly 2 per cent, and is expected to reach 8 per cent over the next decade. According to Chandana, Skyroot is putting together four other rockets, and is targeting a second launch this year.