Vikram-1: India's first private space rocket by Skyroot to carry diamond flower

Imagine launching a satellite as easily as calling a taxi. That's the goal of Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian private rocket company. They are attempting their first orbital launch on Saturday.

Skyroot recently became India's first space tech unicorn, valued at $1.1 billion. Their Vikram-1 rocket is set to launch from the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) facility in Sriharikota.

The seven-story rocket will head to Low Earth Orbit, about 280 miles (450km) away. If the 16-minute flight succeeds, Skyroot will be the first Indian private company to launch a rocket into orbit. This would make India only the third country, after the US and China, with a private company capable of orbital launches.

A successful launch will bring Skyroot closer to its "cab service to space" vision. Companies could hire a rocket to place a satellite or visit a space station.

A "Cab Service" for Space

The Vikram-1 rocket is named after Vikram Sarabhai, known as the father of India's space program. It is small and can carry payloads up to 350kg.

Skyroot co-founder and CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana explained that access to space is a major bottleneck. Satellite operators often wait months or years for a launch. Skyroot aims to change this by offering dedicated missions for small payloads.

Instead of sharing space on large rockets with fixed schedules, customers can book a launch tailored to their needs. It's like taking a taxi instead of waiting for a train. Chandana said, "If you want to just go to a friend's house, you don't need a train, you book a cab, an Uber. What we are offering is a cab service to space."

If successful, Skyroot's model would be similar to Rocket Lab in the US, which also provides small-lift launch vehicles.

Payloads and Tributes

The Indian test launch mission, called Aagman (Sanskrit for arrival), will place six payloads into orbit. These include scientific instruments like a robotic arm for removing space debris, an Earth observation camera, and satellites. One satellite is from a German company.

The mission also includes two symbolic payloads. One is a lotus made of lab-grown diamonds, called Cosmic Bloom. It was developed by Cosmos Diamonds. The other is a tiny gold rocket with micro-sculptures of three famous Indian scientists: Nobel Prize-winning physicist CV Raman, aerospace engineer and former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam, and Vikram Sarabhai. Each sculpture is smaller than a grain of rice.

Chandana said these are a way of paying tribute to the visionaries who shaped India's space program. The diamond lotus celebrates India's creativity and is expected to evoke the line "like a diamond in the sky" from the nursery rhyme "Twinkle, Twinkle."

India's Growing Space Ambitions

Saturday's launch is the first of two test flights Skyroot plans this year before commercial launches next year. Chandana noted they can build one rocket every month at their factory in Hyderabad. He called it a "historic flight for the private space sector in India."

Skyroot was founded in 2018 by Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, who were colleagues at ISRO. They started the company to build rocket components for satellites.

In 2020, India opened its space sector to private firms. This allowed them to build rockets and satellites and use ISRO's launch facilities. The goal is to increase India's share in the global space market from 2% to 10% by 2030. Since then, over 400 space start-ups have emerged in India, with Skyroot being the most successful.

This launch follows ISRO's successful Moon, Mars, and solar missions. India plans to send astronauts into space next year, an orbiter to Venus by 2028, and build its own space station by 2035.

Skyroot's cab service could also support ISRO's programs. However, Chandana expects 70-80% of their market to be global. He sees huge economic opportunities in supporting services like agriculture, disaster management, communications, and national security.