India’s first privately developed launch vehicle, Skyroot’s Vikram-S, is set to take off from the country’s only spaceport in Sriharikota between November 12 and 16.
The mission, dubbed ‘Prambh,’ will see Vikram-S carry three customer satellites in a sub-orbital flight, ushering in the era of private sector launches.
The final launch date will be determined by the weather. “The Vikram-S rocket is a single-stage sub-orbital launch vehicle that will carry three customer payloads and assist in testing and validating technologies in the Vikram series space launch vehicles,” said Naga Bharath Daka, the company’s COO and co-founder.
Sub-orbital flight, such as that undertaken by Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, refers to vehicles that travel at a speed slower than the orbital velocity – that is, fast enough to reach outer space but not fast enough to maintain an orbit around the Earth.
The mission will assist the company in testing its systems in orbit.
The company is developing three Vikram rockets that will use various solid and cryogenic fuels to deliver payloads weighing between 290 and 560 kg to sun-synchronous polar orbits. In comparison, India’s workhorse PSLV can carry up to 1,750 kg to such an orbit, while the newly developed small satellite launch vehicle – designed to carry smaller commercial satellites – can carry up to 300 kg.
“We could develop and get our Vikram-S rocket mission ready in such a short period solely because of the important cooperation we received from ISRO and IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre), and the technology talent that we innately possess. We are happy to announce our path-breaking mission ‘Prarambh’ dedicated to the Indian private space sector, which has tremendously benefited from the reforms and vision of the Government of India,” said Pawan Kumar Chandna, CEO and co-founder of Skyroot.
Although Skyroot will be the first private corporation to launch a rocket, others will be close behind. Consider the Agnikul Cosmos, whose semi-cryogenic Agnilet engine was tested for 15 seconds on Tuesday at the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) vertical testing facility at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) in Thiruvananthapuram. ISRO’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLV) are also expected to be developed and operated by private companies in the near future.
In terms of private satellite missions, ISRO’s largest launch vehicle Mark III successfully launched 36 OneWeb satellites (Bharti is a stakeholder). The space agency will also launch a fleet of 36 satellites for the corporation. Aside from that, the space agency has launched at least four student-built satellites.
