Vikram-1 heads higher after Vikram-S: What is the Aagaman mission to be launched on July 12 already

India’s first private orbital rocket is ready for launch. The startup behind the Vikram-1 test flight, Skyroot Aerospace, has announced that the Aagaman mission will launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, anytime between July 12 and August 4, 2026.

The exact launch date has not yet been confirmed. “The countdown to a new chapter in Indian spaceflight begins,” the company announced at X on Thursday, July 2.

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Vikram-1, expected to launch as early as July 12, follows the successful launch of Vikram-S in November 2022, shifting Skyroot’s ambitions from suborbital to orbital missions.

The launch comes as India opens up its state-controlled space sector to private companies seeking a bigger share of the global market for satellite launches and related services.

What is Vikram-1?

Vikram-1 is a rocket built by Hyderabad-based private company Skyroot Aerospace. It is a multi-stage launch vehicle and is designed to carry a payload of up to 350 kilograms into low Earth orbit.

The team behind the mission said Vikram-1 is almost as tall as a seven-story building.

“Getting something this big into orbit requires precision engineering at every stage of ascent as much as it does raw power,” the company said.

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He added that Vikram-1 must be “big enough to carry fuel into orbit and smart enough to shed that weight along the way”.

The Vikram-1 vehicle is more than three times taller than the Vikram-S vehicle (launched in November 2022) and consists of three propellant stages.

Its goal is to deliver nearly half a metric ton of payload into low Earth orbit. The structure is largely made of carbon composites, Ars Technica reported.

Vikram-1 was decommissioned from Hyderabad on April 25 by Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy Garu from the Max-Q campus in Hyderabad, marking the completion of the pre-flight integrated test campaign.

Vikram-S vs Vikram-1: What’s the difference?

Vikram-S and Vikram-1 are different rockets developed by a Hyderabad-based space startup. Vikram-S was the “suborbital version” of the missile, while Vikram-1 is the “orbital” version.

Vikram-1 is an ‘orbital’ rocket – different from the Vikram-S that was launched as part of the Prarambh mission on November 22. The Vikram-S launch marked the first launch of a rocket built by an Indian private company.

The ‘orbital’ test flight of Vikram-1 will take a significant leap forward in technology.

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“This is the first time for India that a privately designed, developed and manufactured orbital rocket has been stacked on this pad (First Launch Pad, Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota),” the company said in another post on X.

Skyroot Aerospace says the Vikram-S has proven that a private Indian company can build and launch a rocket into space. But suborbital and orbital are completely different problems.

It explained that getting into orbit means building a rocket that can not only carry satellites, but also precisely place them in orbit around the Earth.

“We started with a belief: satellite operators around the world deserve reliable, affordable and dedicated access to orbit. Vikram-S demonstrated this technology in 2022. Vikram-1 will put it into orbit,” the company said.

what’s in a name

Skyroot named its initial line of vehicles “Vikram” in honor of Indian physicist Vikram Sarabhai, who is considered the father of India’s space program.

As a testbed for its Skyroot technology, it worked on a suborbital version of its Vikram-S rocket from 2020 to 2022, and launched a 6-meter rocket in November of that year.

“You name something ‘one’ when you know it won’t be the last… The ‘S’ was about starting small and suborbital, like going from zero to one; and ‘one’ is the beginning of something infinite,” said Naga Bharath Daka, co-founder of Skyroot Aerospace.

‘Kalam-250’ and ‘Kalam-100’

The first three stages of Vikram-1 use solid-propellant engines named after Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.

Kalam-250 is Stage 2 of Vikram-1 orbital launch vehicle which is now fully integrated at SHAR, Sriharikota. Flex nozzle, actuators and intermediate stages 1_2L & 1_2U fitted and assembled.

The third stage of Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 orbital rocket is called Kalam-100. The stage produces a peak vacuum thrust of 100 kN (or ~10 tons) and has a burn time of 108 seconds.

’60 million dollars’

Before launching, Skyroot Aerospace said it had raised $60 million at a $1.1 billion valuation. “This capital will go towards scaling the Vikram-1 launch cadence, expanding production and developing Vikram-2 – a one-tonne vehicle with an advanced cryogenic upper stage,” she said in May this year.