India's 1st privately built rocket Vikram-S set to keep date with space on November 18

HYDERABAD: India’s first privately built rocket, Vikram-S, developed by Hyderabad-based startup Skyroot Aerospace, is set to fly into space and create history on Friday.
The suborbital launch vehicle is scheduled to blast off from Isro’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh at around 11.30am, carrying three payloads belonging to Space Kidz India, N-Space Tech India and Bazoomq Armenia as part of its maiden mission — Prarambh.
Vikram-S, which will be powered by India’s first carbon-fibre-built solid fuel engine, was initially slated for launch on November 15, but was finally given clearance for launch on November 18 by space regulator IN-SPACe.
Revealing the vital statistics of Vikram-S on Thursday, Skyroot tweeted that the single-stage rocket is 6m long, 0.375m in diameter and weighs 545kg.
It has the ability to generate a peak vacuum thrust of seven tonnes and peak combustion pressure of 90 Bar. It has the capability to travel at hypersonic peak velocity over Mach 5 and can carry 83kg payload to an altitude of 100km, Skyroot said.
Pitching Vikram-S as the “quickest and most affordable ride to space”, the startup said, it is one of the world’s first few all composite space launch vehicles and has 3D-printed solid thrusters for spin stability.
According to Skyroot, Vikram-S will help test and validate 80% technologies for its future Vikram series of orbital class space launch vehicles, including many sub-systems and technologies that will be tested across pre lift-off and post lift-off phases of the launch.
It will enable flight-proving of avionics systems in Vikram series like telemetry, tracking, inertial measurement, GPS, on-board camera, data acquisition and power systems, said Skyroot, which is gearing up to launch its orbital rocket Vikram-1 in 2023.
Vikram-S took about two years to develop and was built using advanced technologies such as carbon composite structures and 3D-printed components.
Skyroot, which is the largest funded private space startup in India with about $68 million raised so far, was founded in June 2018 by former Isro scientists Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka.