India Becomes Third Country to Joins China, US in Commercial Space Race With Skyroot Launch

India’s first privately developed orbital rocket has given the country’s fledgling commercial space industry a long-sought proof point, but analysts say Skyroot Aerospace must now show it can launch regularly, cheaply and reliably enough to win customers in a crowded global market.

Skyroot’s Vikram-1 rocket lifted off on Saturday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, carrying several customer payloads and in-orbit experiments on its maiden orbital mission, called “Mission Aagaman”.

The rocket injected its payload into a 450km (280-mile) orbit on its first attempt, making India the third country to achieve orbital launch capability through private enterprise, after the US and China.

The milestone drew comparisons on social media with SpaceX’s Falcon 1, which reached orbit only on its fourth attempt. It was also seen as a step forward in India’s ambition to grow its space economy from about $8.4 billion to $44 billion by 2033, targeting about 8 percent of the global market.

For decades, the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was virtually the only major player in the country’s space sector.

Experts said the launch was significant, but Skyroot still had a long way to go before it could turn a successful test into a commercial business.

“They will have to undertake one or two more launches before they declare the system operational. After the system becomes operational, the Vikram-1’s rocket launcher system, then only then can they attract the market globally,” Ajay Lele, a space expert, told India’s state-run broadcaster Doordarshan.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and opposition leader Rahul Gandhi both hailed Skyroot’s achievement, which was delivered by a team whose average age was 28, according to local media reports.

“Knowing just how hard this is, I couldn’t contain the excitement at Mission Control as the rocket we built with so many dreams successfully inserted satellites into orbit – on its very first attempt,” Pawan K Chandana, chief executive of Skyroot, wrote on social media.

Chandana co-founded the company with Naga Bharath Daka in 2018, and both are former ISRO scientists.

UK-based astrophysicist Peter Hague congratulated the young Skyroot team on social media, noting that the rocket “leapt off the pad quickly” and delivered the payload to orbit despite having a “bit messy” moment at one stage of the flight.

The Indian mission comes amid intensifying competition in the global small-satellite launch market, where start-ups are trying to challenge incumbents led by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Small satellites are used for communications, Earth observation, research, internet-of-things networks and technology demonstrations. Customers often seek either low-cost ride-share slots or dedicated launches to precise orbits.

Over the last seven to eight years, SpaceX has launched thousands of small satellites into orbit, both for its own Starlink constellation and for customers through its dedicated SmallSat Ride share programme.

Despite the challenging path ahead, Lele said Skyroot’s success was particularly important, noting that Japanese companies had failed in attempts to put a payload into orbit over the past few years.

India opened its space ‌sector to private investment in 2020, allowing start-ups to build rockets, satellites and launch services – activities that were for decades provided by the ISRO.

The country now has more than 400 space start-ups, according to local media reports.

India was the first Asian nation to place a spacecraft into Mars orbit in 2014. Three years ago, it achieved a soft landing on the moon, becoming only the fourth country to do so.

“Skyroot is positioning itself as a ‘space taxi’ for dedicated small-sat launches into precise orbits, exactly where global demand outstrips supply,” said Srinivasan Balakrishnan, director of strategic engagements and partnerships at the Delhi-based think tank Indic Researchers Forum.

“With 70-80 per cent of future payloads expected from overseas such as the US, Europe and Southeast Asia, a successful cadence could generate millions per launch.”

Balakrishnan said launching satellites set in motion a “virtuous cycle” for more investment in India’s space industry, such as for satellite manufacturing, ground systems and data analysis.

Early revenues, such as those for propulsion components, had already started flowing in, he added.

Another Indian company, Agnikul Cosmos, is actively planning and developing launch vehicles specifically designed to put small satellites into space. Its flagship launch vehicle, Agnibaan, is a highly customisable, orbital-class rocket engineered to carry payloads of up to 500kg to low Earth orbit.

A proven private launch capability also strengthened India’s strategic autonomy, feeding into a government drive to become self-reliant even for defence technology, Balakrishnan said.

“It won’t replace dedicated military systems overnight, but it adds resilience and innovation speed, much like how private players bolster supply chains elsewhere,” he said.