Skyroot Aerospace successfully reached orbit in the first launch of its Vikram-1 rocket over the weekend, making history as the first private orbital launch from India.
The company launched the Vikram-1 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the Sriharikota island in Andhra Pradesh, India. The mission lifted off at 12:05 p.m. local time in India on Saturday, July 18.
Skyroot confirmed after launch that Vikram-1 reached 450 km at a 60-degree inclination and deployed technology demonstration payloads from Grahaa Space, Cosmoserve and DCubed, as well as Skyroot’s own SCOPE satellite.
Skyroot is now the first private company to launch a rocket from India.
“What the world witnessed today is the result of years of work by our team, our partners and suppliers across the country. It proves that India has the talent, the technology and the industrial strength to build launch vehicles that meet the world’s standards and to serve the world from here,” Skyroot co-founder and CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana said in a statement.
Vikram-1 is designed to launch small satellites, up to 350 kg to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). Skyroot is also working on the Vikram-2 rocket, targeted for a first flight in 2027, capable of launching up to 1,000 kg.
Chandana recently spoke with Via Satellite in the lead-up to the first mission about the company’s ambitions to add meaningful capacity to the small satellite launch market for both Indian and global customers.
“We don’t just want to be the player who does their first launch and takes a lot of time before coming back for the second launch. We want to be able to do consecutive launches in a small timeframe, and then establish the reliability of the vehicle, and become a credible alternative in the small satellite launch market, and execute our customer commitments,” Chandana said.
Retired Lt. Gen. AK Bhatt, who serves as director general of the Indian Space Association (ISpA), called the mission a “defining milestone” for India’s space journey in a statement.
“By executing the nation’s first fully private orbital flight, Skyroot has shattered legacy boundaries, demonstrating that our domestic industry is primed to handle end-to-end space missions,” Batt said.
Batt added that the mission sends a signal to global sovereign and institutional funds. Skyroot itself recently became India’s first “space unicorn,” reaching a $1.1 billion in May.
“The Indian private space sector is no longer a high-risk bet; it is a highly bankable, globally competitive asset class capable of breaking the global small satellite launch bottleneck,” Batt said.
