With Skyroot at the head of the class, India’s private space industry wants to take off

After decades of controlling all aspects of space flight, the Indian government decided in 2020 to open up the private sector. Basically, the government said that companies can build their own rockets, get permission to launch them, and even use government-controlled equipment.

The government and the country’s space agency, ISRO, initiated the change in response to the rise of commercial companies in the United States, and later China, which were playing a key role in global spaceflight.

Now, six years later, this structural change is starting to bear fruit. India’s most promising company, Skyroot Aerospace, is approaching the pad with its first orbital rocket.

The Vikram-1 launch vehicle could take off in the next few months, its founder and CEO, Pawan Kumar Chandana, told Ars in an interview. And with a recent $60 million investment bringing the company’s value to $1.1 billion, the company is about to accelerate its commercialization efforts.

The beginning of Skyroot

Chandana graduated in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in 2012, and like almost everyone in India who was interested in space at the time, went to work for the Indian Space Agency. But six years later, he saw a looming disruption in the aerospace industry and believed India would follow suit.

“Back in my school, I always had the desire to be an entrepreneur,” he said. “I was very inspired by what SpaceX was doing. Rocket Lab was also growing.

Although India did not have a trading post, Chandana believed that the rising country had the right ingredients. The country was home to great engineers, factories, a government space station, and a prime location near the equator.

However, leaving ISRO was a big risk. Chandana had no assurances that India would open up its startups or allow government funds to fly on private rockets. But he believed that if he could not start working for a private startup company, his competitors in the United States, China, Europe, Japan, and elsewhere would be able to move forward. So he and another ISRO scientist, Naga Bharath Daka, took the leap and launched Skyroot in June 2018 in Hyderabad.