India's first privately developed orbital rocket blasted off into space on Saturday, an achievement Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed as "opening new frontiers and accelerating innovation."
The South Asian nation becomes the third after the US and China to achieve the milestone, following a surge of investment in the space sector since the pandemic and the creation of more than 400 startups.Skyroots' rocket is named after Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the Indian space programImage: Noah Seelam/AFP
What happened?
Skyroot Aerospace, the company behind the launch, said the Vikram-1 rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota island, in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh.The launch, dubbed "Mission Aagaman" after the Hindi word for "arrival," took place at 0635 UTC/GMT (11:05 a.m. local time).
"Hello space, we have arrived!" the firm wrote on X. "Vikram-1's Test Flight-1 has completed its mission. The first-ever Indian private sector launch has been successfully completed."
