In the same week that Skyroot’s Vikram-1 made India only the third country to achieve private-sector orbital launch capability, Chennai-based Agnikul Cosmos set out its own next frontier.
Agnikul Cosmos’ Mission-02 will attempt India’s first recovery of an orbital-class rocket booster and convert the spent upper stage into a functioning in-orbit platform, an architecture the company has patented in India, the United States and Europe.
Agnikul, incubated at IIT Madras, has already launched the world’s first rocket powered by a single-piece 3D-printed engine from India’s first private launchpad.
In a written interview, co-founder and CEO Srinath Ravichandran explains why he believes the real race in launch is economic rather than technological and what it will take for Agnikul to reach 100 missions a year.
His responses have an engineer’s directness.
