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Two IITians—one a mechanical engineer from IIT Kharagpur, the other an electronics engineer from IIT Madras—joined the Indian Space Research Organisation in 2012, became flatmates and, later, good friends.
Pawan Chandana has all along been enamoured by tough machines and wanted to be an entrerpreneur since his schooldays. And rocket is the toughest machine of them all, he says. While working with ISRO, he felt there was global demand for more space launches and wondered if he could float a private space tech company. He pitched the idea to Naga Bharath Daka who was equally enthusiastic. And in 2018, Skyroot Aerospace was born.
That was a time when the space domain was the exclusive preserve of the government. Reforms to the space policy happened only three years later so it was a leap of faith for us, Chandana told BharatShakti Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale.
But why launch rockets, why not build satellites? Ask anyone in the business and they will tell you launching a rocket is the toughest part, says Chandana. It’s like a system of systems, a multi-disciplinary domain and all the systems have to work fine for the launch to happen. The only way to test a rocket is to actually do a rocket launch. It’s not like building a car and if it doesn’t function as per expectations you can recall it, he says.
There are other challenges as well, Chandana explains. The margins are extremely thin, 10-15%. So there’s not much leeway to go wrong. When we began, there was only one Indian player in the business, which is ISRO. There was no know-how repository to tap into and no technology transfer. So in many ways, we had to reinvent the wheel, he adds.
In 2022, Skyroot launched Vikram S, a suborbital mission. The name, as Chandana says, is a tribute to Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space programme.
So what’s next? In just days, Skyroot is scheduled to launch Vikram-1, India’s first privately built orbital rocket. And if it reaches its destination, well, sky may no longer be the limit.
