India launches Vikram-1 in first private orbital rocket mission

BENGALURU, July 18: Indian space startup Skyroot Aerospace on Saturday launched the country's first privately developed orbital rocket, a key test of national efforts to compete for a bigger share of the global commercial launch market.

The Vikram-1 rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 0635 GMT, leaving behind a plume of fire and smoke, carrying several customer payloads and in-orbit experiments on its maiden orbital mission, dubbed "Mission Aagaman".

It successfully injected its payload into a 450 km orbit about 15 minutes later, making India the third country to achieve orbital launch capability through private enterprise.

The launch, which was initially planned to take off at 0600 am GMT, was put on hold temporarily, before it was rescheduled.
The mission is intended to validate the rocket's propulsion, avionics, telemetry, guidance, navigation and control systems in flight while collecting data for future commercial launches, Skyroot said. �"REUTERS