Sriharikota (AP), July 18 (UNI) The Vikram-1, India's first private orbital flight that was successfully launched on Saturday from here, has many of India's space firsts rolled into one rocket.
After a 35 minute delay due to a minor technical glitch, the first test flight of Skyroot Aerospace, named Mission Aagaman (Arrival), took off from the First Launch Pad at 1205 hrs from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here at 1205 hrs and successfully reached its
450 km Low Earth Orbit after a flight journey of 15 minutes.
The Vikram-1 (Test Flight-1) brought together a series of breakthroughs that are happening for the first time in India. It was the
country's first privately developed Orbital Launched Vehicle that took India's private launch ambitions from possibility to Orbit.
It was also India's First All-Carbon Composite Orbital Rocket--a high-tech material that was five times ligter and stronger then the best rocket steel.
Vikram-1 had India's first 100 per cent 3D-Printed Engine on an Orbital Vehicle. It's Orbit Adjustment Module (OAM) that enabled the Orbital insertion, was powered by a regeneratively cooled liquid engine.
It had first of its kind Ultra-low-shock, pneumatic separation systems--the Modular and testable separation systems which assisted in separation of all the stages and payload fairing.
It also has India's longest Monolithic Carbon-Composite Rocket stage. Vikram-1's Stage-1 represented a major advancement in indigenous composite engineering and manufacturing.
Vikram-1 carried innovation, imagination and legacy to Orbit with a diverse set of customer payloads and in-orbit experiments from India and around the world. They included Cosmic Bloom Cosmos Diamonds--an aristic lab grown diamond lotus jewellery shaped
like a blooming flower, and a micro art tribute by Ajay Kumar Mattewada -- a miniature 18 karat gold rocket carrying micro-sculptures
of Father of Indian space programme Dr.Vikram Sarabhai (the Rocket was named after him), Nobel Laureate Sir C.V.Raman and former President and eminent missile and space scientist Dr.APJ.Abdul Kalam.
UNI GV 1445