India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on dramatic debut launch

zbentley•13 minutes ago

And with $160MM in funding at a $1.1B valuation? I don't know about their debt, but to get to LEO in 8 years on that little money is extremely impressive.

walrus01•4 minutes ago

The first, second and third stages all being solid rockets also means India now has a global-range ICBM, with only a little bit of modification needed to make it storable in a silo. Privately developed, but I would be astonished if the Indian military isn't well aware of this new capability.

ghm2199•1 minute ago

The mil have had solid propulsion for a while https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni-VI

ambicapter•4 minutes ago

4 stages feels like a lot of added complexity for your first launch. I assume it gives you more performance margin to drop weight/stages more often?

walrus01•2 minutes ago

It's three solid rocket boosters stacked on top of each other and a very tiny liquid fueled engine on the 4th stage. I would be interested in what the delta/v stats/capability of the 4th stage booster are with 350 kg payload.

sidcool•17 minutes ago

Only the third country to achieve this. Kudos.

There's another startup trying reusable rockets.

vjsrinivas•15 minutes ago

India's space work often went under the radar. Im glad they're getting the success and attention they deserve.

jdiez17•about 1 hour ago

Extremely strong performance from India’s Skyroot with their Vikram-1 rocket. I can say that many in the space industry are looking for new launch capacity to LEO.

hulitu•about 1 hour ago

> Extremely strong performance

Strong ? They shall learn from SpaceX how one explodes rockets on the launch pad. /s

nubg•6 minutes ago

Superpower by 2026 it seems

bovermyer•about 1 hour ago

That's pretty cool. The phrase "3D-printed engine" stuck out to me as neat, too.

echoangle•about 1 hour ago

Rocket Lab has been printing engines for some time now

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_(rocket_engine)

ColdStream•4 days ago

Fantastic news! Always good to see others manage achieve great things.

guess_who_is•17 minutes ago

Vikram-1 is distilled version of Saturn-V

India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on dramatic debut launch

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