History will be made on Saturday as India's first space-tech unicorn, Skyroot Aerospace, attempts its maiden orbital launch from Sriharikota in southern India. At 06:00 GMT, the company's Vikram-1 rocket is scheduled to lift off, carrying six payloads into Low Earth Orbit, approximately 450km above the Earth, during a 16-minute flight.
Should Skyroot succeed, it will become the first private Indian entity to achieve orbital flight, catapulting India alongside the United States and China in this elite group. The Vikram-1 rocket stands seven storeys tall, named after Vikram Sarabhai, India's space programme father. Designed to carry payloads of up to 350kg, it marks a significant step towards making space access more efficient.
Skyroot co-founder and CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana envisions a 'cab service to space', offering organisations dedicated mission bookings for small payloads, rather than sharing space on larger rockets. This innovative model addresses the current bottleneck in space access, where satellite operators face lengthy waits for launch opportunities – sometimes extending months or even years.
The test launch, dubbed 'Aagman' (Sanskrit for arrival), features a diverse range of payloads, including scientific instruments like a robotic arm designed for space debris removal and an Earth observation camera. A German company's satellite will also be carried on board. Symbolic gestures include the Cosmic Bloom – a lab-grown diamond lotus and a miniature gold rocket featuring micro-sculptures of three Indian scientists: CV Raman, APJ Abdul Kalam, and Vikram Sarabhai.
These tributes to India's space pioneers are not mere gestures; they represent a cultural celebration of creativity and ingenuity. The diamond lotus aims to evoke the 'diamond in the sky' from the nursery rhyme. With two test flights planned for this year, Skyroot is on track to commence commercial operations next year, signalling its readiness for future demand with an impressive one rocket per month production capacity at its Hyderabad factory.