Amidst all the political activity around the elections, a private space company, Agnikul Cosmos, carried out the first successful launch of its indigenously-built rocket last week, opening up a new chapter in India’s space sector. The event was significant enough to be noticed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and everyone else in the space sector, in India and abroad. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar congratulated the company for the achievement. A remarkable feat which will make the entire nation proud! The successful launch of Agnibaan rocket powered by world’s first single-piece 3D printed semi-cryogenic engine is a momentous occasion for India’s space sector and a testament to the remarkable ingenuity of our Yuva… pic.twitter.com/LlUAErHkO9 — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 30, 2024 To be sure, this was not the first time that an Indian private company had flown a rocket from Indian soil. In November 2022, Skyroot Aerospace, a young space start-up just like Agnikul, successfully launched a rocket which it has named Vikram, after Vikram Sarabhai, the legendary space leader credited with building ISRO in the initial years. That moment too had been hailed by the President, Prime Minister, and many others. The inaugural flight of Agnikul’s creatively named Agnibaan rocket builds on the success of Skyroot and signals the range of options that are opening up in India’s space market. Agnibaan was powered by the world’s first 3-D printed engine, and was launched from Agnikul’s own launchpad, built at ISRO’s Sriharikota launch facility. Both Agnikul and Skyroot hope to begin launching commercial satellites on their rockets within a year. Small satellites The rocket flown on Thursday will eventually have several variants, capable of carrying payloads between 30 kg and 300 kg to lower earth orbits. The Skyroot rocket, Vikram, also has a few variants, with similar capabilities. Both of these are targeting the small satellite market to cater to a rapidly growing demand for a variety of space-based applications in areas as diverse as communications, broadcasting, disaster management, climate change, earth and ocean observation, urban planning, and surveillance. These satellites are usually not meant for space exploration or scientific experiments. ISRO itself is developing a new rocket, called SSLV or Small Satellite Launch Vehicle, to serve this demand. SSLV, which has flown twice but only once with success, is slightly more powerful and can carry payloads up to 500 kg. Agnibaan rocket The uniqueness of Agnibaan lies in the fact that its semi-cryogenic engine is entirely 3-D printed. The engine does not have any components or moving parts at all. There are no joints, no welding, and no fusing. It is a smooth single piece of hardware. The use of 3-D printing in space hardware is not a novel idea. But no one has used an entire engine that is 3-D printed. 3-D printing can increase efficiency, bring down costs, and reduce the probability of something going wrong. In an engine that is an assembly of several moving points, each joint or wiring is a potential source of error. Agnibaan’s engine, named Agnilet, has been an entirely in-house development. The fact that Agnibaan was launched from a privately owned launch pad is a first for India. Thus far, all space launches were carried out from one of the two ISRO launch pads at Sriharikota. Given the prospect of a sharp rise in the number of space launches, ISRO is in the process of developing a second space port, at Kulasekarapattinam in Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu. It is meant to be used mainly for SSLV launches. Agnikul, the company, has built its own launch pad inside the Sriharikota range with the help of ISRO. It uses a lot of ISRO’s facilities, but the separate launchpad gives it the flexibility to schedule its launches whenever it wants. Agnikul is hoping to carry out 35 to 40 launches of its Agnibaan rockets every year. Rise of private players Agnikul and Skyroot represent the success of India’s efforts to open up the space sector for private participation. They are not alone. Dozens of space companies have come up in the last few years, operating in different segments of the space market — satellites, space-based applications, hardware, communications, data centres, and everything else. Many of them have already started to make their mark. With private players also coming in, space has become a sunrise sector that the government is promoting heavily. Prime Minister Modi has personally held several meetings with a select group of space entrepreneurs. Space has become an important part of India’s diplomatic outreach to other countries, inviting other companies not just to utilise its capabilities for their own needs, but also to invest in an area that promises to grow at a very fast pace in the near and medium term.
