India's first privately developed rocket reaches low earth orbit in debut launch
9 hours ago
- Indian space officials hailed the debut flight of Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1, India's first fully commercial satellite launcher, as a 'grand success'.
- The rocket lifted off from Sriharikota Island in the Bay of Bengal at 06:35 UTC on Saturday after a brief technical delay.
- Vikram-1 stands 72 feet tall and can carry up to 770 pounds to low-Earth orbit, making it larger than Rocket Lab's Electron.
- The flight executed flawlessly with three solid-fueled stages and a liquid-fueled fourth stage reaching orbital velocity (~17,000 mph).
- A minor anomaly occurred during third-stage separation, but the fourth stage successfully reached an orbit of 280 miles altitude, confirmed by US military tracking.