ISRO Launches First Private Rocket with Flying Colours; Details Inside

Highlights

• The Vikram-S successfully lifted off at 11:30 am on Friday from the Sriharikota spaceport of the ISRO.
• The Vikram-S is named after Indian physicist and astronomer Vikram Sarabhai.
• It aims to support communication services like broadband internet, GPS, IoT from space, and earth imaging.

In Brief

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is the second largest space agency in the world after National Aeronautics Space Association (NASA), which has acquired a stature and reputation that is difficult to match.

Being the national space agency of India, the fastest developing country in the world, it is not easy to escape the watchful eye of other country’s space agency, especially after the hugely successful Pokhran-II tests in 1998 that threw USA off guard completely.

It was a bolt out of the blue for the superpower that was America where the Central Investigative Agency (CIA) and NASA did not know what hit them and from where, by which time it was too late, and they were left with no choice but to lick their ‘nuclear’ wounds.

They could vent out their frustration only by leveling a couple of sanctions against India, by which time India had already achieved its goal of establishing itself as a full-fledged nuclear state.

Now, in 2022, ISRO has also launched India’s first ever private rocket called Vikram-S, while the mission has been codenamed ‘Prarambh’, which saw the rocket three massive payloads that totally weighed around 85kg.

Barely 3 minutes after taking off from the ground, the rocket had already reached an altitude of 81.5km, while another five minutes later, the payloads separated from the rocket, following which it crashed into the Bay of Bengal after the success of deploying the payloads into orbit.

The Vikram-S has been named after renowned Indian physicist and astronomer Vikram Sarabhai and was developed by Skyroot Aerospace, a private aerospace manufacturer based in Hyderabad, for which it took nearly four years.

Sarabhai is considered the pioneer of space exploration who hugely contributed to India’s development of nuclear power, while the payloads deployed were from Bazoomq Armenia, N-Space Tech India, and Space Kidz India, all of which were equipped with sensors to study pressure and acceleration.

Also Read: ISRO to Launch Chandrayaan-3, Its Third Mission to Moon, in June 2023

Conclusion

Vikram S-series consists of Vikram-I, Vikram-II, and Vikram-III, where the former two had a payload capacity of 480 and 595kg, respectively, for Low Earth Orbit, while the latter had the capacity of 815kg to 500km Low Inclination Orbit.

It took nearly two and a half years for Skyroot Aerospace to develop the rocket with the backup of more than 200 engineers contributing to the project as launching payloads into Low Earth Orbit with nearly 800kg will be validated by the mission.

Also Read: ISRO to Conduct First Test Flight of Gaganyaan Mission in February Next Year