The Agnikul’s Launchpad in Sriharikota presents the Agnibaan Sub Orbital Technological Demonstrator (SOrTeD) vehicle.
Finally, on May 30th, Thursday, Chennai-based space start-up Agnikul Cosmos Private Limited launched its first rocket named Agnibaan Sub Orbital Technology Demonstrator (SOrTeD) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. This launch was postpone several times before it happened.
At 8.12 am, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) posted a message on X: “Congratulations @AgnikulCosmos for the successful launch of the Agnibaan SoRTed-01 mission from their launch pad. A major milestone as the first-ever controlled flight of a semi-cryogenic liquid engine realized through additive manufacturing.”
TAMIL NADU’S SPACE INDUSTRY witnessed A MAJOR MILESTONE – Chennai based start-up Agnikul Cosmos Private Limited has launched its first rocket called Agnibaan Sub Orbital Technology Demonstrator (SOrTeD) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
— Sangeetha Kandavel (@sang1983) May 30, 2024
Additionally, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), an autonomous agency functioning as a single-window independent nodal agency under Department of Space (DOS), said on X: “Heartiest Congratulations @AgnikulCosmos for the successful launch of the Agnibaan SoRTed-01 mission from their launch pad at SDSC. This is the first-ever controlled flight of a semi-cryogenic liquid engine realized through 3D manufacturing.”
This particular launch by IIT-Madras incubated startup was supposed to happen on 7th April but was delayed just 129 seconds before takeoff due to minor hitches. On the same day, the start-up posted on X: “Had to call off today’s launch attempt of Agnibaan SOrTeD just a second into Automated Launch Sequence (ALS) initiation (at T-129 seconds) because of a communication issue between 2 of our onboard hardware. Although it is frustrating to see a HOLD this close to lift off, we are glad that our ALS did its job. We’ll get to the root cause and come back for launch after a fixing the cause. Thank you for the support as always.”
Agnibaan SOrTeD is India’s first private launch from a private launchpad. It is India’s first semi-cryogenic engine power rocket launch and world’s first single piece 3D printed engine designed and built indigenously.
Srinath Ravichandran, Moin SPM, and Satya Chakravarthy, founded Agnikul Cosmos in 2017 making it the country’s pioneer firm by entering into an agreement with ISRO under IN-SPACe initiative in December 2020 giving them access to the space agency expertise and facilities for building Agnibaan.
Lt. Gen. A.K. Bhatt (Retd.), Director General, Indian Space Association (IspA) said: “What Agnikul has achieved today, is nothing short of a historical milestone since India launched its maiden rocket in 1963 from Thumba launch station. Agnibaan SOrTeD has got many firsts in its strides with being India’s first launch from a private launchpad, the first semi-cryogenic engine-powered rocket launch and the world’s first single-piece 3D printed engine designed and built indigenously.”
He also added that this big event coupled with the Indian Space Policy 2023’s implementation guidelines recently introduced by IN-SPACe and the new FDI regulations will undoubtedly strengthen global confidence in India’s private space industry and its increasing capacity.
