'Momentous Development' — Skyroot Aerospace's Stage 1 Motor Case For Its Vikram 1 Rocket Takes Shape

Indian space technology startup Skyroot Aerospace on Tuesday (4 July) announced the completion of work on its stage-1 motor case for the Vikram 1 space launch vehicle.

“In a momentous development, we successfully completed the carbon-fiber winding and curing of our majestic 10 meters long, 1.7 meters diameter, Stage-1 motor case for Vikram-I,” the Hyderabad-based company said on Twitter.

This is the 11th composite rocket motor case that Skyroot has built and the largest of all so far.

The startup tweeted that it was “built meticulously in-house using our multi-axis high precision robotic machine, powered by our proprietary software.”

Skyroot co-founder Pawan K Chandana didn’t hide his excitement at the development. “Witnessing this massive piece of rocket hardware take shape at our factory is incredible. The intricate craftsmanship of a composite motor case blurs the boundaries between art and technology,” he said in a tweet.

According to the company, this stage has been named ‘Kalam 1200’ and is designed to generate a peak thrust of 120 tonnes. This will go into the Vikram 1 space launch vehicle.

Vikram, named after Dr Vikram Sarabhai, is a series of modular rockets especially crafted for the small satellite market by Skyroot Aerospace.

The Vikram 1 launch vehicle can lift off with a payload up to 480 kg to 500 km low inclination orbit and 290 kg payload to 500 km sun synchronous polar orbit. It can be assembled and launched within 24 hours from any launch site.

Only recently, on 21 June, Skyroot announced the successful flight qualification testing of their Raman 1 engine, which will be used for roll attitude control of the Vikram 1 rocket.

Skyroot was also featured prominently in a New York Times article, published on 4 July, about India’s startup-led soaring space business.