Skyroot Aerospace shares wild clip of Vikram-S rocket launch for mission Prarambh; WATCH

Skyroot Aerospace scripted history on November 18 as it became the first privately owned firm to launch a rocket from Indian soil. The company opened the doors for commercial space firms with its Prarambh mission that lifted off from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 11:30 am IST with three small satellites. The mission saw the launch of a single-stage Vikram-S rocket that demonstrated the technologies for their usage in Skyroot's sub-orbital rockets for deploying heavier payloads.

Skyroot Aerospace shares iconic moments from the launch

Taking to Twitter, the company shared clips of Vikram-S' historic flight that lasted a total of 290 seconds. The video shows views gathered by the camera onboard the rocket as it spins wildly while ascending to its planned altitude. Following the flawless launch, Pawan Goenka, Chairman of INSPACe, the rocket achieved an apogee of 89.5 km and splashed down into the Bay of Bengal 121 km from the launch site exactly as planned by Skyroot. 

Vikram-S is a single-stage rocket that measures six metres in height and weighs around 545 kg. The reason why Vikram-S is unusually smaller than conventional launch vehicles is that it was a sounding rocket which is used for testing prototypes. The data collected after the historic flight will be used to validate 80% of the technologies that will eventually be used in other Vikram class of rockets. 

Videos of Vikram-S' launch are also going viral on social media and the success is being hailed by many Union Ministers including PM Narendra Modi. "A historic moment for India as the rocket Vikram-S, developed by Skyroot Aerospace, took off from Sriharikota today! It is an important milestone in the journey of India’s private space industry," PM Modi tweeted. Naga Bharath Daka, co-founder of Skyroot also confirmed the mission's success as all systems worked as intended. "The rocket completed all required mission objectives. It is a small step by a startup and a giant leap for the Indian space industry. It's just the Prarambh for a great future," Daka said.