THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: India's first privately built rocket Vikram- S will be launched today with three payloads. The rocket will be launched from the Sounding Rocket launch pad at Satish Dhawan Centre in Sriharikota at 11.30 am. This is a test launch called as ‘Mission Prarambh’.

A solid-fuelled Kalam 80 engine-mounted rocket will launch satellites at an altitude of 120 km above Earth. It will fall back into the sea. The 300 second mission is the first test of the technical talent of private entrepreneurs. The launch is under the supervision of ISRO. The rocket will carry a two-and-a-half-kg ‘Fun-Sat’ and two nano-satellites built by students from the United States, Singapore and India under the leadership of SpaceKidz, Chennai.

Union minister for Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh will be in Sriharikota to witness the historic launch. The launch scheduled for 15th has been postponed to today due to unfavourable weather conditions.

If the mission is successful, Vikram I, Vikram II and Vikram III rockets will be launched next year. These are four stage rockets. The first three stages have solid fuelled Kalam engines and the fourth stage has liquid fuelled Raman engine. They only need less cost and construction time.

In 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened up rocket launching to private entrepreneurs. Currently, there are 102 start-ups in the space sector in the country. Nano satellite manufacturing, space debris control activities and launch are their areas of work. The space industry is now worth one lakh crore rupees.

Vikram Rockets

The Vikram rocket was built by Skyroot Aerospace Pvt Ltd, which started in Hyderabad in 2018. Pawan Kumar Chandana is the owner of the company. The rocked ‘Vikram’ is named after Vikram Sarabhai, the father of Indian space research.