While millions watched Vikram-1 lift off from Sriharikota and roar towards orbit, the young engineers behind the mission were glued to telemetry feeds, separation parameters, communication links and hundreds of numbers inside the Launch Control Centre (LCC). For the country, it was a 16-minute flight. For these engineers, many with roots in Telangana, it was the culmination of years of work, sleepless nights, career choices and childhood dreams.
For Nikhil Koneri, a 31-year-old design and systems engineer at Skyroot Aerospace and a Hyderabad resident, one of the most tense moments came during the final-stage separation. It initially appeared normal, but a harness remained slightly tight, causing the stage to tilt and bounce back, he says, adding that the harness eventually cleared, the vehicle regained orientation with its thrusters and the mission continued.
Nikhil worked on space mechanisms, including stage and payload separation systems. His team developed a pneumatic mechanism designed to reduce the shock associated with explosive separation. It had to operate within milliseconds, with multiple separation events occurring in an extremely short window.
For Mahesh Gadde, 34, from Manuguru in Bhadradri Kothagudem district, the launch marked the culmination of nearly two-and-a-half years of testing. He joined Skyroot in February 2023, when Vikram-1 was still in development, and worked in avionics hardware quality, testing and clearing packages before their integration into the vehicle. “Testing, testing, testing,” is how he described those years.
Inside the LCC, Mahesh monitored the telemetry console and checked whether systems were functioning as expected. When the first-stage ignition came and the rocket began its ascent, he experienced something for the first time: watching a vehicle he had helped test leave Earth.
For Nikhil Madduri, the journey to Vikram-1 began with walking away from a secure career. After graduating from IIT Kharagpur, he worked as an aerospace scientist at the Aeronautical Development Agency under the Ministry of Defence, contributing to the Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas. In 2011, he left his Class-I Central government position to pursue his childhood dream of space science and technology. He earned two master’s degrees in Germany and Sweden before joining Skyroot, where he has spent the last six years as a Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) engineer.
His contribution to Vikram-1 was the navigation software in the mission computer. Using onboard sensor data, it estimates the rocket’s attitude, position and velocity, effectively telling the vehicle where it is and how it is moving.
The team had earlier tested its navigation algorithms on Vikram-S, Skyroot’s suborbital rocket launched in November 2022. Vikram-1 took that work from a suborbital demonstration to an orbital mission.
Viswasahithi Murthy’s journey began with an unexpected opportunity. She pursued a four-year Diploma in tool, die and mould-making at the Central Institute of Tool Design. Of around 15 students who appeared for a Skyroot campus interview, only three were selected. She was one of them. As a tool design engineer working in Solid Propulsion and Pyros, Sahiti contributed to Vikram-1’s Flight Termination System, a critical safety mechanism designed to protect the mission during an anomaly.
By launch day, the rocket was no longer just a CAD model or engineering drawing. It was the physical result of years of work. Her hope was simple: that the system would work perfectly if needed, but that the mission would be so successful it would never have to be activated. It was exactly what happened.
‘Not so glam’
Chandrasekhar Dhulipala’s first impression of Skyroot was less glamorous. When he joined in 2022, he saw an unusual half-cut cylindrical structure filled with wires and electronics. Despite years of experience in electronics, VLSI and critical systems, the sight intimidated him.
Chandrasekhar, who grew up in Habsiguda and studied electronics and communication engineering at NIT Andhra Pradesh, is now 30. His work involved the communication lifeline between the rocket and ground — transmitting data and commands and maintaining communication between systems onboard.
As Team Lead for Telemetry, Tracking and Command Systems, launch day required him to coordinate with teams at Sriharikota and ground stations in Australia and Indonesia to ensure mission data reached Earth reliably.
“There were times when we worked for 48 hours and even 52 hours at a stretch. There was no sleep, and sometimes we hardly had time to eat,” he says.
When the countdown entered T-5, Chandrasekhar ensured overseas ground stations received updated technical information. After liftoff, while colleagues celebrated, he remained focused on the incoming data.
At one point, he asked the administration team for a microphone and speaker, effectively becoming the mission’s unlikely “technical DJ” — telling colleagues when they could celebrate and when they had to remain quiet so he could communicate with ground stations.
Only after the critical mission events were complete did he stop working. The celebrations that followed released years of pressure: screams, tears and hugs after long stretches of working without sleep.
For these engineers, the launch was more than a spectacle. When the payloads were deployed and the mission crossed its completion point, they could finally stop watching the numbers.
For Chandrasekhar, the microphone went down. For Mahesh, years of testing had produced the answer he wanted. For Sahiti, the safety system she helped build remained unused. For Nikhil, the separation mechanisms worked in milliseconds. And for Madduri, the navigation software guided the vehicle as intended.