NEW DELHI: India’s space startup Skyroot Aerospace completed its first orbital flight on Saturday, making India the third country in the world with a private company capable of such a feat.
The Vikram-1 rocket lifted off at 12.05 p.m. from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, an island off the Bay of Bengal.
The four-stage, seven-story rocket was named after the late Vikram Sarabhai, who pioneered the Indian space program. Designed to carry payloads of up to 350 kg into low-Earth orbit, it managed to deploy its payloads about 16 minutes later.
“Hello space, we have arrived. Vikram-1’s Test Flight-1 has completed its mission. The first-ever Indian private sector launch has been successfully completed,” Skyroot said on X.
Saturday’s orbital flight, dubbed “Mission Aagaman,” which means arrival, is the first in a series of test flights before moving to commercial launches.
“This is a defining moment in India’s space journey. The growing participation of our private sector is opening new frontiers and accelerating innovation,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on social media, welcoming the successful launch as “historic.”
With the first fully private orbital flight, Skyroot has demonstrated that India’s “domestic industry is primed to handle end-to-end space missions,” according to Lt. Gen. AK Bhatt (retd.), director general of the Indian Space Association.
“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,” Bhatt said.
India’s private space sector has increasingly played a role in the country’s ambitious space goals, which include plans to increase its current 2 percent share in the $450 billion global space economy to almost 8 percent by 2033.
The number of space startups in India surged from just one in 2014 to more than 400 by July 2026, according to a release issued by India’s Press Information Bureau.
In 2026, more than 400 active startups are operating in rocket launches, satellites, Earth observation, satellite communications, propulsion, electronics, space monitoring, and data analytics.
Skyroot Aerospace, which recently became India’s first space tech unicorn after reaching $1.1 billion valuation, now joins a growing list of private companies across the world that have independently developed and launched orbital rockets, including Space X and Rocket Lab from the US and China’s LandSpace.
“Mission Aagaman is the culmination of years of engineering, rigorous testing, and an unwavering commitment to solving some of the hardest problems in space,” Naga Bharath Daka, Skyroot’s co-founder and COO, said in a statement.
“Every milestone today reflects the dedication of hundreds of engineers, technicians, and mission specialists who believed in pushing the boundaries of what was possible.”
The startup has said that its goal was to “open space for all,” with its Vikram series of launch vehicles aimed at providing on-demand and dedicated access to space for small satellite operators worldwide.
“Even as we celebrate, we are already applying today’s learnings to the next chapter of the Vikram series and to building a world-class launch capability from India, for the world,” Daka added.
The company’s next mission will involve Vikram-2, a launch vehicle designed to carry up to 1,000 kg to low-Earth orbit, with its maiden flight targeted for 2027.