When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket is seen inside the company’s Infinity Campus in Hyderabad, India. | Credit: Sumil Sudhakaran/Skyroot AerospaceHYDERABAD, India — When Space.com visited Skyroot Aerospace’s Max-Q campus here in February, the company’s first orbital rocket, Vikram-1, was still coming together.Inside the company’s 55,000-square-foot (5,110 square meters) rocket factory, engineers sat before computer screens, running critical simulations and systems checks on Vikram-1’s Orbit Adjustment Module, the liquid-fueled upper stage that stands at the center of the room and will guide the rocket’s final maneuvers in space. Unlike the rocket’s three solid-fueled lower stages, the upper stage can restart its engine, allowing Vikram-1 to deploy multiple customer satellites into different orbits during a single mission.AdvertisementAdvertisementAt the time, it was one of the last major components awaiting an overnight transport to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, where the rocket’s lower stages had already arrived for final integration.Aerial view of Skyroot Aerospace’s Infinity Campus in Hyderabad, India, showing a life-size model of the company’s Vikram-1 rocket outside. | Credit: Sumil Sudhakaran/Skyroot AerospaceFive months later, the fully assembled, seven-story rocket stands on the coastal launch pad, monitored by a launch team of about 200 people — roughly one-fifth of Skyroot’s workforce — preparing for a launch window that opened on July 12 and runs through Aug. 4. (The company has not yet announced a firm target date.)If all goes as planned, Vikram-1’s mission, named Aagaman — Sanskrit for “arrival” — will place multiple customer payloads into low Earth orbit, at an altitude of 280 miles (450 kilometers). Success would be historic: No private Indian company has ever launched a satellite to orbit.The manifest includes Skyroot’s SCOPE satellite; a technology demonstration from the German company DCUBED; Indian startup Grahaa Space’s SOLARAS S3 satellite; and Embrace, a robotic arm designed to capture debris in orbit, from fellow Indian company Cosmoserve Space.AdvertisementAdvertisementVikram-1 will also carry two symbolic payloads — a floral-shaped artwork called Cosmic Bloom fr …
