Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket lifts off on its first flight July 18. Credit: Skyroot Aerospace webcast
WASHINGTON — Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket successfully lifted off on its inaugural flight July 18, becoming the first commercial Indian rocket to reach orbit.
Vikram-1 lifted off at 2:35 a.m. Eastern from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India’s main spaceport. The liftoff was delayed by 35 minutes because of a technical issue found at the T-minus 5-minute point in the countdown.
The rocket closely followed its flight path after liftoff, with the three solid-fuel stages performing as expected. The rocket deployed a liquid-propellant kick stage, the orbit adjustment module, which fired for about six minutes. The company declared that the upper stage reached its planned 450-kilometer low Earth orbit 15 minutes after liftoff.
This inaugural launch of Vikram-1, called Mission Aagaman (Sanskrit for “arrival”) by the company, carried two cubesats, one built by Skyroot and the other by another Indian startup, Grahaa Space. It also carried hosted payloads from Dcubed and Cosmoserve Space as well as miscellaneous other items, including postcards signed by people such as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
