What Vikram-1 Really Changes for India in Space
The mission deployed multiple payloads into a 450-kilometer orbit and strengthens India’s private launch market, officials and industry leaders said.
- On Saturday, July 18, 2026, Skyroot Aerospace launched Vikram-1 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, successfully placing payloads into a 450-kilometre low Earth orbit on its maiden attempt.
- Founded in 2018 by former ISRO scientists Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, Skyroot completed its journey from inception to orbit in eight years, following a suborbital test flight named Prarambh in November 2022.
- Designed as a carbon-composite four-stage launcher, Vikram-1 provides what Skyroot has called a 'cab service' for small satellites weighing up to 350 kilograms, letting customers select specific orbits and launch schedules.
- India is now the third country globally to host private orbital launch capability, joining the United States and China, providing strategic redundancy for satellite operators and reducing reliance on ISRO.
- Skyroot plans to launch the larger Vikram-2 rocket with a 2027 maiden flight, supporting government goals to grow the national space economy to $44 billion by 2033 from around $8 billion.
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India has become the third country in the world, after the United States and China, to successfully launch an orbital rocket developed by a private space company. According to Reuters and other sources on the 19th (local time), Indian aerospace startup Skyroute Aerospace announced that it launched the orbital rocket ‘Vikram-1’ the previous day and successfully placed it into a 450 km orbit. Vikram-1 is located in Srihariko, Andhra Pradesh, in so…
(Seoul = Yonhap News) India has become the third country in the world, after the United States and China, to successfully launch an orbital rocket developed by a private space company.
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