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India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch
- ColdStream 3mo agoFantastic news! Always good to see others manage achieve great things.
- bovermyer 3mo agoThat's pretty cool. The phrase "3D-printed engine" stuck out to me as neat, too.
- jdiez17 3mo agoExtremely strong performance from India’s Skyroot with their Vikram-1 rocket. I can say that many in the space industry are looking for new launch capacity to LEO.
- hulitu 3mo ago[flagged]
- guess_who_is 3mo ago[flagged]
- guess_who_is 3mo ago[flagged]
- MobiusHorizons 3mo agoNo it’s just a really insulting and irrelevant thing to say.
- guess_who_is 3mo ago[flagged]
- fooker 3mo agoReminds me of the NYC cartoon too ;)
- guess_who_is 3mo agoVery good reminder!
- gsky 3mo agoIm pretty sure Newyork times has come up with another racist cartoon
- NetMageSCW 3mo agoWhat does it share?
- guess_who_is 3mo ago3rd law
- sidcool 3mo agoOnly the third country to achieve this. Kudos. There's another startup trying reusable rockets.
- rrr_oh_man 3mo ago> Only the third country to achieve this. What do you mean by this?
- darth_avocado 3mo agoProbably meant the third country with a private sector capability to launch rockets, US and China being the other two.
- a34729t 3mo agoas opposed to New Zealand?
- walrus01 3mo agoRocket Lab is a US company, they would not have been able to build what they did without full ITAR and MTCR compliance.
- onethought 3mo agoMaybe you need to let them know. They were founded in NZ by a NZer, they launch from NZ, their employees are NZers. Calling them a US company is equivalent to saying Google is Irish.
- walrus01 3mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18427351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18427351 Design and manufacturing is in the los angeles region aerospace industry cluster. It's been a US company for the last 13 years. https://rocketlabcorp.com/updates/rocket-lab-makes-its-defense-prime-debut-with-0-5-billion-contract-to-design-and-build-satellite-constellation-for-space-development-agency/ https://rocketlabcorp.com/updates/rocket-lab-makes-its-defen...
- vjsrinivas 3mo agoIndia's space work often went under the radar. Im glad they're getting the success and attention they deserve.
- zbentley 3mo agoAnd with $160MM in funding at a $1.1B valuation? I don't know about their debt, but to get to LEO in 8 years on that little money is extremely impressive.
- londons_explore 3mo agoIf you do all the work in India, you have low materials costs and low labour costs.
- bell-cot 3mo agoTrue, but: Consider how many rocket development efforts squandered 10X to 100X the money, and >8 years, without making it to orbit. Using solid fuel for their first 3 stages also makes it far easier. I'd take that as evidence of their management wisely picking a good shape for the org's learning curve. Vs. chasing the long-odds bragging rights & likely heartbreaks of a liquid-fuels-only version 1.0.
- zbentley 3mo agoSomewhat, but rocket engineering has some upward cost pressures that offset the savings from being in India: expertise is expensive even adjusting for the cost of labor (many staff are likely competing on salary with the rest of the world--rocket engineers/scientists are in high demand with lots of likely sponsors for immigration); aerospace materials/fabrication have a pretty global supply and patent chain even given how big and diverse India's industrial base is; safety and engineering tolerances are incentivized to meet global standards (many prospective launch/payload customers and investors are international), and so on. I'm no expert, but I suspect that even if you apply a generous discount for being in India, Skyroot's economics are still quite impressive. Edits: clarity
- literalAardvark 3mo agoRocketry is tightly controlled by ITAR, so mobility is lower than you'd expect for a high value field.
- nubg 3mo agoSuperpower by 2026 it seems
- orsenthil 3mo ago[flagged]
- walrus01 3mo agoThe first, second and third stages all being solid rockets also means India now has a global-range ICBM, with only a little bit of modification needed to make it storable in a silo. Privately developed, but I would be astonished if the Indian military isn't well aware of this new capability.
- ghm2199 3mo agoThe mil have had solid propulsion for a while https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni-VI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni-VI
- walrus01 3mo agoRight, but see the details for estimated range and the map. Not that India has any foreseeable need to nuke Argentina but it's not in range. It's entirely possible the public data is wrong and the Agni VI has a global range. But by definition if you can put something into a 350x350 km low earth orbit (something like 7800m/s total delta V) you could also deliver a re-entering payload from your launch site to any other spot on earth, within the limitations of the inclination you're launching to.
- londons_explore 3mo agoI was under the impression long range missiles aren't much use in global warfare anymore, because they are easy targets for missile defence systems. Even if your target doesn't have missile defence systems, any ally of theirs along the route can intercept too.
- nirav72 3mo agoBallistic intercepts are still very difficult and not always certain to work. Interception is only possible within a specific trajectory window with limited number of shots. The missile defense we commonly hear about these days is used against lower speed , shorter range and altitude missiles:
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- ambicapter 3mo ago4 stages feels like a lot of added complexity for your first launch. I assume it gives you more performance margin to drop weight/stages more often?
- walrus01 3mo agoIt's three solid rocket boosters stacked on top of each other and a very tiny liquid fueled engine on the 4th stage. I would be interested in what the delta/v stats/capability of the 4th stage booster are with 350 kg payload.
- wat10000 3mo agoA partially empty stage wastes mass on propellant tanks sized for the full load. The mathematical ideal would be an infinite number of infinitesimally small stages.
- londons_explore 3mo agoExcept you pay the weight for the nozzles on each stage. That makes there be a mathematically optimal number.
- MobiusHorizons 3mo ago4 stages is certainly a lot more than most rockets, but most rockets don’t use solid rocket stages. Solid rocket motors are generally much more reliable/ simpler than liquid fueled stages, but they can’t be throttled or turned off early which makes it hard to achieve precise orbits. My guess is the extra stages allow for better control by carefully choosing when to light the next stage. The scout family of rockets are also 4 stage solid rockets and probably a good comparison.
- londons_explore 3mo agoDon't you need at least a little thrust ~40 mins later to circularize the orbit? Obviously solid rockets can't be relit. Could that be the use of the 4th stage?
- ghm2199 3mo agoA small but bright light in an economy where manufacturing jobs are hard to come by (https://archive.ph/Haj8n https://archive.ph/Haj8n).
- dyauspitr 3mo agoIt’s a strange place. They’re building out expressways and railways at a breathtaking pace (something like an entire Switzerland’s worth of new track every year), are simultaneously building out multiple nuclear reactors, exports and manufacturing are shooting up, but the cities still look like shit.
- blueblisters 3mo agoIndia thrives in high tech sectors that are ironically export controlled by the rest of the world. That’s the primary reason the talent in those domains stays back. As for the rest of India, you can largely find the root causes of problems by tracing adverse selection effects among the elites that do remain, massive, conflicting vested interests and decades of horrible, incompetent policymaking.
- adithyareddy 3mo agoWhat you see in Indian cities is a result of multiple factors (like everything): - Low GDP per-capita, offset by immense scale, which means the central government can mobilize massive resources for national projects, but municipal bodies are financially starved (municipal revenues in India are < 1% of total tax collections, for context it's 6% in South Africa and 10% in Brazil). Cities are completely dependent on the state for money, unlike countries where cities control their own property and commercial taxes, so they raise very little on their own, and states have multiple other priorities so cities never get as much money as they need. - Leading off the previous point - executive power over cities is very fragmented, most authority rests with state chief ministers and state-appointed bureaucrats rather than empowered local mayors, so city planning is subordinate to state-level political priorities. City management itself is divided among uncoordinated state-level bodies (separate agencies for roads, water, power, and transit). There's a lot of accountability voids where something goes wrong and everybody thinks it's a different body's responsibility. The poor coordination also means you'll have things like a road laid on Monday, and on Wednesday the water authority digs it up to fix pipes underneath. - The Indian constitution guarantees freedom to move and reside anywhere, so it's not legally possible to control rural to urban migration like China did with its Hukou system. E.g. Bangalore adds anywhere from 350k to 600k people a year almost entirely from internal migration. Much faster than housing, transit, and civic utilities can keep up with. Things are getting better, although slowly and unevenly: - Mass transit is expanding rapidly - Door-to-door solid waste collection now reaches roughly 98% of urban wards (tougher than you would think because the unrestricted migration tends to create a lot of ad-hoc unplanned settlements on the outer parts of cities) - The central government is working on allowing cities to issue municipal bonds to raise their own funds. - Bangalore now (as of last year) has a single body called the Greater Bangalore Authority that has statutory oversight over previously uncoordinated agencies that handle water, transport, power, transit etc. Other state governments with major cities are watching to see how it plays out, and will likely copy + adapt it to their own major cities based on how it goes.
- andsoitis 3mo agoCongratulations!
- itissid 3mo agoThere is just so much that can go wrong with rocket launches if you do cursory reading about these things. A few random examples: The lowest stage cant just be "turned down" or modulated because they work by burning an inner solid rubber lining that's like an annular cylinder. The first three stages are roughly doing the job sequence: `lift off the ground -> reach target altitude -> reach target orbital velocity` and each stage is modulated for atmospheric pressure, gravity. Another limit is you can't really design it for a human in the middle(like a jet plane), so the rocket's computer needs to do everything, and when the rocket's pitch or yaw or roll(in a manner of speaking) go off beyond a nominal range its game over. ISRO has a very good track record of launching rockets with solid state engines. I do wonder if almost all of their expertise was used for the first three stages(and they are not 3d printed)? And how much more difficult it is to make the last stage as compared to the first three, which as I understand, was the stage designed and tested by skyroot itself(manufactured by Wipro 3D).
- Abh1Works 3mo agoI think an important thing here is that the company is almost 8 years old. Which, is not old for a defense tech manufacturer, but does give them leeway to develop and test
- reactordev 3mo agoSpontaneous rapid disassembly is common in this field.
- vivzkestrel 3mo ago- you seem to know what you are talking about - is there a place that you recommend where they teach you how rockets work, what is involved in building one, the math and physics behind it, materials required etc etc?
- aduwah 3mo agoKerbal Space Program
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- mayama 3mo agoRegarding Indian private space sector, In addition to skyroot solid rocket, following are noteworthy Agnikul is planning to launch semi-cryo kerosene rocket pretty soon. Their engine is 3d printed and use electric pump fed 25kN small engine. Planning to launch 4 clustered engines as first stage and already did suborbital test, with some parachute splash down reusability claims. Astrobase is recent entrant. With decent funding and former ISRO scientists as core team, developing 800kN FFCS methalox engine. FFCS is called holy grail of liquid engines. They have acquired largest metal 3d engine and planning VTVL 1st stage reusability
- alephnerd 3mo agoAlso, Pixxel, Skyroot, and Agnikul are targeting orbital data center launches this year for defense applications (which is what the entire ODC story is about). The US NRO already uses India's Pixxel [0] along with Finland's ICEYE (which is now co-manufacturing synthetic aperture sats in India with Agnikul [1]) for hyperspectral scanning. Edit: can't reply > But.. why? Missile Defense and C4ISR [2]. Seconds matter, so most of the newer generation of missile defense systems are experimenting with how to offload compute at the edge to reduce C2 latency. Most orbital sat startups in the US, China, and India are partially backed by military and intel oriented funds (eg. Starcloud and IQT/In-Q-Tel). ----- [0] - https://www.nro.gov/news-media-featured-stories/news-media-press-releases/Archived-Press-Releases/Press-Release-Article/Article/4476860/nro-partners-with-new-vendors-to-boost-multi-phenomenology-capabilities/ https://www.nro.gov/news-media-featured-stories/news-media-p... [1] - https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/agnikul-cosmos-iceye-space-startups-india-11782805545828.html https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/agnikul-cosmos-iceye... [2] - https://idsa.in/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/book-MISSION-SUDARSHAN-CHAKRA-2026.pdf https://idsa.in/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/book-MISSION-SUDA...
- detritus 3mo agoMein Gott, you're not just making this up ( https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/neevcloud-and-agnikul-cosmos-plan-to-launch-data-centers-in-space/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/neevcloud-and-agn... ). But.. why? Musk bandwagon-hopping? Investor bamboozlery? (Same diff?) Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? - ed, disclosure: You seem to have edited your response whilst I was typing mine, adding in valuable links. Thanks!
- josefresco 3mo agoFor those interested, just read a great book on this topic: When the Heavens Went on Sale by Ashlee Vance: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62050244-when-the-heavens-went-on-sale https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62050244-when-the-heaven... It profiles: Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab
- 1e1a 3mo agothis is Skyroot Aerospace
- Ari_Ugwu 3mo agoI have an AI generated podcast that tries to unearth some of the negative spin that develops around these amazing achievements. No surprise there was a spike in misinformation this week and I’m sure there will be more to come. It can be hard when you are blindsided by negativity that seems to come out of nowhere. Hopefully this is helpful to us all https://rss.com/podcasts/the-narrative-networks-podcast/3017267/ https://rss.com/podcasts/the-narrative-networks-podcast/3017...
- gsky 3mo agoNice podcast
- anon291 3mo agoIndia desperately needs more r&d and advanced manufacturing. Good for them; congrats to the team
- ck2 3mo agobtw recently discovered this neat website that shows ALL upcoming rocket launches * https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/8033/ https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/8033/ * https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/ https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/
- elevation 3mo agoDoes anyone know what they're using for telemetry? Over the launch pad you have a UHF link, but that offers infrequent availability after launch. If I were launching my first orbital vehicle and I didn't have a hyper developed space program already, I would want to equip it with something like Starlink so I would be able to communicate with it even when it wasn't in range of my ground station(s).
- shevy-java 3mo agoIt's so sad that the Modi clique controls India. If India could become a real democracy, it could be competitive in the long run against China, because assuming similar quality and costs, people in democracies would much rather support a democracy than sinomarxist China or crazy-oligarch orange king country. But with Modi in charge, none of that is possible. Old men really need to leave politics, they just cause too many problems in general.
- throwaway7783 3mo agoI haven't followed Indian politics in a while, but I don't understand the "real democracy" comment. Can you elaborate on this? Or is it because Modi won three elections in a row?
- notLAYZ38 3mo agoThe person has nothing to add to the conversation, that's why he's bringing politics to it (which obviously he has no control over)
- cute_boi 3mo agoModi is bad, but Congress are objectively worst than him. This mean India have no choice.
- ChuckMcM 3mo agoQuite the achievement, congratulations! I'm really curious to see how things unfold when tens of private companies can launch payloads into LEO.
- Scroll_Swe 3mo ago[flagged]
- lorreyfum 3mo agoThere goes the dark sky
- josephjrobison 3mo agoCongrats to India - please catch up to China. Regards, the west.
- dyauspitr 3mo agoThat’s not going to happen anytime soon. The Chinese model doesn’t work for India. China is essentially a benevolent dictatorship where they can tell people what cities they can live in, how many kids to have and when redevelopment is needed they just end the lease early and move everyone out because no one owns anything there. Any change in India is going to be much slower. Even land acquisition for any project is like pulling teeth. They literally had to pare down the terminal at the Mumbai airport because they couldn’t evict slum dwellers that had encroached on land that they don’t even own or have any rights to. The Indian Constitution is very friendly to the under class to the detriment of rapid development.
- bluegatty 3mo agobravo!
- Reuben_Smith 3mo agoThat’s a huge milestone. Getting a privately developed rocket to orbit on the very first launch is seriously impressive.