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Indian startup launches country’s first privately built rocket : NPR


The Vikram-S rocket, India’s first privately owned rocket developed by Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian startup, took off in Sriharikota, India, on Friday.

Skyroot via Reuters


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Skyroot via Reuters


The Vikram-S rocket, India’s first privately owned rocket developed by Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian startup, took off in Sriharikota, India, on Friday.

Skyroot via Reuters

An Indian aerospace startup has launched the country’s first private rocket – a major milestone in India’s efforts to boost the private space industry.

The rocket, known as Vikram-S, was launched to applause from onlookers Friday morning from the government-run Satish Dhawan Space Center, near the city of Chennai.

It reaches a maximum altitude of 89.5 km, or about 55.6 miles. This is 50 miles higher than NASA’s designated Earth-space boundary, but shorter than the Kármán line (about 62 miles above Earth), commonly considered the boundary of space.

The rocket stayed airborne for about five minutes and reached speeds of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound.

The the company behind the rocket is Skyroot, based in Hyderabad and founded by former engineers in the Indian Space Research Organization. The rocket is named after Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the Indian space program.


Skyroot aerospace
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Pawan Kumar Goenka, president of IN-SPACe, an agency under India’s space ministry, said the launch went as expected.

“All the systems that I was able to create worked as planned, and Skyroot Aerospace demonstrated the ability of different subsystems to enter the launch vehicle,” he said after the rocket crashed. down to the Bay of Bengal.

Narendra Modi, India controversial prime minister, tweeted praising the successful launch.

“A historic moment for India as the Vikram-S rocket, developed by Skyroot Aerospace, took off from Sriharikota today! It is a major milestone in the journey of the private space industry of India. India,” he wrote. “This achievement is a testament to the immense talent of our younger generation, who made the most of the landmark reforms in the space industry in June 2020.”

Skyroot is first company to sign an agreement with the country’s space program to launch rockets.

Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson both launched themselves into space last summer on ships built by their own competing space technology companies.

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