The southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu will witness history when one of its space startups launches its first rocket on March 22, 2024. The Chennai headquartered space startup Agnikul Cosmos Private Limited will be launching its first rocket Agnibaan Sub-Orbital Technology Demonstrator from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota.
There are certain interesting facts about this particular launch, the Agnibaan SOrTeD will be India’s first private launchpad. India’s first semi-cryogenic engine powered rocket launch and the worlds first single piece 3D printed engine designed and built indigenously.
Founded in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran, Moin SPM and Satya Chakravarti, Agnikul Cosmos became the first company in the country to sign an agreement with ISRO under the IN-SPACe initiative to have access to space agency expertise and its facilities to build Agnibaan in December 2020.
Commenting on the launch, Chakravarthi, the co-founder and advisor Agnikul Cosmos, and professor of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Madras) told an Indian media agency. “This will be India’s first liquid oxygen kerosene rocket flight in India from India’s first privately developed rocket flight in India.”
More importantly, we would be flying our patented world’s most single piece 3D printed rocket,” he added. He further explained, “This is a sub-orbital flight, but it is not a sounding rocket. It has the full stack if closed loop feedback guidance and controlled with a gimballed thrust vector control. As such, this is the first private space launch in India requiring a flight termination system and safety radius from the launchpad calculated from some tens of thousands of simulations of worst-case scenarios.”
“This mission attempts to validate the guidance, control and navigation system, the launch release hold mechanism, the entire command sequence operated by the onboard computer, telemetry and tracking, all that goes with a full orbital flight except stage separation,” Chakravarti explained.
He pointed out that the next step posts the mission would be the post flight analysis of all the subsystems performance. The immediate future plan is to get ready to for orbital flight. Tamil Nadu has always played a critical role in space sector. Over the years, several companies and MSMEs from various states have contributed to the development of the minor parts for successful mission launches like Chandrayaan-3 mission.
During an interaction with an Indian media agency on the state’s plans in the space sector, Sandeep Nanduri, the managing director of Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited (TIDCO) said, “There are numerous companies in Tamil Nadu who are part of the ISRO vendor base offering services in sectors like design, R&D and simulation along with material supply, propellants supply, sub-systems mechanical and structural manufacturing etc.”
According to details provided by the TIDCO, there are several private sector entities operating like Agnikul, Data Patterns, L&T that have strong presence in the state. The details also mentioned “Data Patterns has proven to be reliable partner to the ISRO and has gradually expanded its role from sub-systems manufacturer to complete satellite manufacturers.
The L&T has presence in Coimbatore, and it manufactures engines for ISRO. The Agnikul Cosmos Limited was incubated out of National Centre of Combustion, R&D of IIT Madras.
Nanduri also said that the TIDCO is taking pro-active streps by establishing two new space parks adjacent to the Kulasekarapattinam. The first is dedicated to space related manufacturing catering to the needs of space organisation and the second focuses on propellant production, crucial for rocket launches as well as related services.
Agnikul rocket is the second privately developed rocket in India. In 2022, Vikram-S, India’s first privately developed rocket lifted off from the ISRO launchpad in Sriharikota. Developed by the Hyderabad start-up Skyroot Aerospace Private Limited, the six-meter-tall vehicle hit a peak altitude of 89.5 km and then splashed into the Bay of Bengal about five minutes after the launch. The mission was titled Prarambh.
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