In worldfirst, Agnikul plans suborbital launch of 3Dprinted rocket

Agnikul Cosmos’ Agnibaan rocket will be India’s first semicryo engine; to soar from privately built launchpad

For small rocket maker Agnikul Cosmos, March 22 promises to be a big day.

On Friday, the Chennaibased, IITMadrasincubated space startup will testfire its Agnibaan rocket, which features the world’s first 3D printed, and India’s first semicryogenic engine.

“It will a big day for Agnikul,” Pawan Goenka, Chairman, INSPACe, told businessline today.

The rocket is fuelled by liquid oxygen (LOX), which is kept in a tank under cryogenic conditions, and kerosene, which is not. The 18meter tall, 1.3 diameter rocket can take a 100kg payload to an altitude of 700 km.

Satya Chakravarthy, Cofounder and Advisor, Agnikul Cosmos, told businessline that the launch is significant in several ways.

Apart from the 3D printed, semicryo engine, the rocket will be launched from India’s first privatelyowned launchpad though located inside the Indian space agency ISRO’s Sriharikota spaceport. The launch pad was set up by Agnikul in November 2022.

VERTICAL FLIGHT

Further, it would be a fully guided, vertical ascent flight. After reaching an altitude of 10 km, the rocket will begin its descent and fall into the Bay of Bengal, about 30 km from its launch point. The rocket also features a ‘thrust vector controlled, gimballed motor’, which means its

A file photo of Agnibaan SOrTeD vehicle at Agnikul’s launchpad in ISRO’s Sriharikota spaceport

nozzle can be moved to different angles so that the thrust can vary the direction of the flight and the gimbalmounted motor can rotate in multiple angles. These factors help in ‘steering’ the rocket from the ground station.

The vehicle is so designed that the holdrelease mechanism will not let it takeoff unless its engine develops sufficient thrust — which is not possible in solidfuelpowered rockets.

Chakravarthy, who is a professor with IITM’s Department of Aerospace Engineering, said that Agnikul essentially hopes to test the flight trajectory control with this suborbital launch. (In a sub orbital flight, used to test rockets, the vehicle does not go high enough to attain orbital velocity and, hence, falls back to the earth without going round the planet.)

BOOMING SECTOR

The next step will be to do a orbital test, when the rocket will fly 400500 km above the earth, Chakravarthy said. Agnikul Cosmos is one of the two Indian space startups in the launch vehicle business, the other being Skyroot, based in Hyderabad. Two more startups have applied to the space regulator, INSPACe, for approval, but their names have not been made public.

Private rocket companies hope to provide launch services to satellite companies; they see big business because tens of thousands of satellites are planned to be launched in the coming years.

Agnikul, founded by entrepreneurs Srinath Ravichandran and SPM Moin and mentored by Chakravarthy, has so far attracted $40 million in funding from various private equity investors.