HYDERABAD: Hyderabad-based startup Skyroot Aerospace successfully tested an upper-stage rocket engine becoming the first Indian private company to build a homegrown rocket engine. The engine Raman, named after Nobel laureate CV Raman has fewer parts and weighs lesser than a conventional rocket engine.
In a tweet they announced, “No better day than Dr Vikram Sarabhai’s birthday to announce successful test firing our Vikram-1 launch vehicle upper state engine Raman. Four engines with multi-start capability produce a thrust of 3.4kN and insert multiple satellites into orbit.” The start-up founded by Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, both former ISRO scientists, manufactures three types of launch vehicles, Vikram-1, Vikram-2 and Vikram 3.