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Indian space startup Skyroot Aerospace on Saturday, July 18, 2026 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 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.
“Mission Aagaman is a grand success,” the company said in a statement. “This is a test flight. We will be doing a few of these before we move into routine commercial flights,” it added.
