Hyderabad, 17/11: Vikram-S, the country’s first privately built rocket by a Hyderabad-based start-up, soared into the sky from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) spaceport in Sriharikota, in a giant leap for the fledgling private space sector in India.
Vikram-S, named after the founder of the country’s space program, Dr Vikram Sarabhai, blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota at 11.30 am. The rocket is a single stage suborbital space launch vehicle of Skyroot Aerospace.
The mission titled ‘Prarambh’ (beginning) carried two domestic payloads built by Space Kidz India and N-Space Tech India and one foreign payload from Bazoomq of Armenia. The successful launch of the mission was a new dawn in India’s space history as this was the first privately-build rocket to be launched after the Union Government opened up the space sector to private players in 2020.