India's Skyroot launches Vikram-1 in first private orbital rocket mission
The mission deployed six payloads and validated key flight systems, as Skyroot said it will use the data to refine future commercial launches.
- On Saturday, July 18, 2026, Skyroot Aerospace launched Vikram-1, India's first privately developed orbital rocket, from the Indian Space Research Organisation's facility in Sriharikota, targeting a 16-minute flight to Low Earth Orbit.
- Co-Founded in 2018 by CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, former Isro colleagues, Skyroot became India's first space tech unicorn at $1.1bn valuation after India opened its space sector to private firms in 2020.
- Vikram-1 carries up to 350kg of payloads, including scientific instruments and a lab-grown diamond lotus called Cosmic Bloom developed by Cosmos Diamonds, honoring Nobel Prize-winning physicist CV Raman and former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam.
- Skyroot aims to reduce launch bottlenecks through a 'cab service to space,' offering dedicated missions instead of shared flights; Chandana said access to orbit remains 'a major bottleneck' that their venture expects to change.
- Following this test flight, Skyroot plans a second test before commercial launches next year, expecting 70-80% of its market to be global while India pursues Venus missions by 2028 and a space station by 2035.
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(Jakarta=Yonhap News) Correspondent Son Hyun-kyu = India has successfully launched an orbital rocket developed by a private space company, becoming the third country in the world to do so after the United States and China....
On Saturday 18 July, the Indian company Skyroot announced that it had successfully launched its "Vikram 1" rocket. It is the first private take-off in India's history, symbolizing the country's growing ambitions in space.
Skyroot's Vikram-1 succesfully reaches the orbit
Sriharikota: Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 Test Flight-1 has successfully reached the orbit on July 18, Saturday, marking the maiden flight of India’s first privately developed orbital-class rocket. The rocket completed its final burn and injected its payloads into a nearly 450-km orbit, making India the third country in the world with private orbital launch capability. The mission, named “Mission Aagaman”, was executed from the Satish Dhawan Spa…
India launches private orbital rocket
India’s first privately built orbital rocket took its maiden flight yesterday, Skyroot Aerospace said, marking a significant step for the South Asian giant as it eyes a bigger slice of the global space economy.The Vikram-1 rocket, designed to carry small satellites into low Earth orbit, took off fro
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