CHENNAI: After inclement weather played spoilsport and put off Tuesday’s launch of ‘Vikram-S’, India’s first private rocket developed by Hyderabad-based space startup Skyroot Aerospace, excitement is again growing with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) giving a fresh launch date on November 18 at 11.30 am.
Although IMD said a fresh low pressure area will be forming in southeast of Bay of Bengal, the launch is likely to go ahead this time. Skyroot co-founder Pawan Chandana, who is camping in Sriharikota for the last 10 days said, “Our new launch window given by ISRO is between November 15 to 19. The only likely date is November 18. Since our vehicle is light-weight rocket and aerodynamically driven, wind speed plays a role. As of now, winds are within the limit and ‘Mission Prarambh’ is good to go.”
Some of the members of Skyroot team are stationed in Sriharikota for a month now, conducting critical checks and interfacing the rocket with ISRO’s communication network. Pawan said, “We got the technical clearance from the IN-SPACe committee, which independently checked our vehicle readiness for the launch last week. The vehicle is healthy and passed all the critical checks. Coming Friday will be a big day for us considering the fact that it is our maiden mission, which is sort of experimental flight that would validate all the flight modules that will be use for future orbital missions.”
The Vikram-S rocket, a single-stage sub-orbital vehicle, will carry payloads of two Indian and one foreign customers.
One of the satellite that will be flown is ‘Fun-Sat’ developed by Spacekidz, a Chennai-based aerospace startup weighing 2.5 kg. If Skyroot accomplishes the mission, it will create history becoming first private space company in India to launch a rocket into space.