Indian firm Skyroot unveils 7-storeys tall spacefaring rocket 'Vikram-1'

Indian firm Skyroot Aerospace unveiled what is the country's first privately designed and developed orbital-class rocket. Named 'Vikram-1', this rocket is expected to perform its maiden flight to space in the first quarter of 2024. This is a milestone for the country's fledgling space sector, that has seen significant growth over the last three years, following the roll-out of Space-sector reforms by the Indian Government. The reforms enabled private firms to design, develop, build and launch their own rockets, satellites and offer allied services.

The Indian Space sector has always been dominated by the Indian Government-run ISRO and is expected to remain so for the foreseeable future. However, the mushrooming of startups is expected to improve the spread and size of the Indian space economy.

Unveiling the Vikram-1 rocket at Skyroot's new facility in Hyderabad, Telangana, the firm's Co-Founder Pawan K Chandana said that their firm now employs 300 personnel and has bagged more than Rs. 500crore ($62.5mn approx) in investment.With Skyroot's maiden rocket launch of the vehicle Vikram-S in November, 2022, India became the fourth nationwhere private firms have built and launched rockets. Ours is the largest private rocket development centre in South Asia, he said.

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"We've named our new facility 'MaxQ', it is a technical term denoting the maximum stress and loads that a rocket experiences during its ascent. A rocket has to undergo and push through all this, before it reaches space. Likewise, we would like our team to push ourselves to do extraordinary things in the space sector" he reasoned. Skyroot also showcased an animated preview of their maiden orbital launch, that is expected in the first quarter of 2024.

According to Skyroot, the Vikram-1 vehicle would be able to deliver payloads weighing between 290-480kg, to different orbits that are 500kms above the earth. Being a solid-fuelled rocket and using relatively simpler technologies would mean that launching this vehicle would require minimal infrastructure and that the rocket can be assembled and launched within 24hours from any site. The firm is also developing more versions in the Vikram series and those would involve the use of Cryogenic engines that are more efficient and sophisticated. The firm recently signed pacts with French satellite firms, indicating that they are gradually working towards on-boarding customer satellites for commercial launches. Gaining customers is crucial for a rocket company to stay afloat. This is all the more important, given how Skyroot has a direct competitor in ISRO's newest rocket SSLV, that also ferries similar payloads to orbit. SSLV has already flown twice and delivered one successful mission.

Speaking on the occasion, DrJitendra Singh, India's Union Minister of State, Prime Minister's Office, said that the increased role of the private sector in the space domain would lead to a healthy synergy between the Government-run ISRO and the startups, thereby leading to knowledge sharing. He also mentioned that it would eventually result in more rocket launches being carried out from India and more revenue being generated by it. "The scale of wok is increasing, we can't meet our future requirements in isolation. The opening-up of the space sector for private firms is a win-win situation" he added.

Quoting estimates, DrSingh said that the Indian space economy(presently at $8bn) was expected to be worth $40bn by the year 2040. He also said that there were some foreign-origin estimated pegging the Indian space economy at $100bn by 2040. At present, the Indian space economy is said to be around 2percent of the $450bn global space economy. In order to create greater synergy between the space agencies of G20 nations, India's Government-run Department of Space also held a Space Economy Leaders Meeting, under the umbrella of the G20 Summit that India hosted this year.

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