Skyroot clears its Raman-1 roll-control thruster and ships the first stage for Vikram-1's second flight to Sriharikota
Skyroot Aerospace has completed test firing of Raman-1, the thruster that controls Vikram-1's roll, and shipped first-stage hardware to Sriharikota. The company is targeting the rocket's second flight for December 2026 or early January 2027.
According to reports quoting its 9 November announcement, Hyderabad's Skyroot Aerospace has finished test-firing the Raman-1 thruster, the small engine that controls Vikram-1's roll. The company says the unit is ready for the rocket's second flight. Separately, Skyroot has shipped first-stage hardware for that flight to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, where integration and testing are under way. The target launch window is December 2026 or early January 2027.
Neither milestone is as visible as a launch. Together, though, they show that India's first privately built orbital rocket is moving from a one-off success to a repeatable flight programme, and repeat flights are what turn a launch vehicle into a business.
What Skyroot announced
On 9 November, Skyroot posted on X that Raman-1 had completed its test-firing campaign and was cleared for Flight 2. The company also shared footage of the thruster firing on a test stand. NewsBytes, Startuppedia and idrw.org all reported the announcement.
Raman-1's job is narrow but essential. It manages the rocket's roll, its rotation around its long axis. A launch vehicle that drifts in roll can misalign its guidance, disturb its upper-stage burns and release payloads in the wrong orientation. So attitude-control hardware is among the subsystems engineers want fully qualified before they commit a rocket to the pad.
Reports from WION and Startuppedia say that first-stage hardware for the next Vikram-1 has reached Sriharikota. The launch window is still a target rather than a fixed date.
Building on Mission Aagaman
Flight 2 follows Mission Aagaman, Vikram-1's debut. On 18 July 2026 the rocket reached low Earth orbit and released its payloads at an altitude of about 450 km, making Skyroot the first Indian private company to put a rocket into orbit. That flight came almost four years after Vikram-S, Skyroot's suborbital demonstrator, which flew from Sriharikota on 18 November 2022 and reached an apogee of 89.5 km.
The step from a successful first flight to a second one is often harder than it looks. A maiden launch shows that the design can work. Later flights show that the manufacturing line, the supply chain and the launch team can do it again on schedule. Many small-launch companies around the world have struggled at exactly this stage.
Why it matters
A second Vikram-1 flight in the December–January window would move India closer to having a private launcher with a real cadence. Small-satellite builders in India, including the growing group of Earth-observation and in-orbit-services start-ups, now book most rides abroad or wait for ISRO's PSLV and SSLV slots. A dependable domestic small launcher would give them a scheduling choice and keep launch spending, and the engineering skills that come with it, in the country.
It also tests the policy bet behind IN-SPACe and the 2023 Indian Space Policy: that private companies can carry part of India's launch load while ISRO focuses on human spaceflight, deep-space missions and heavy lift. Raman-1 is a small part, but qualifying it is the kind of unglamorous work that decides whether that bet pays off.
What to watch
- Final integration of all Vikram-1 stages at Sriharikota and a confirmed launch date.
- The payload manifest for Flight 2 and whether it includes paying commercial customers.
- Turnaround time between Flight 2 and Flight 3, the clearest measure of whether Skyroot can sustain a launch cadence.
Sources
- https://www.newsbytesapp.com/news/science/skyroot-aerospace-successfully-tests-raman-1-thruster-boosting-vikram-1-reliability/tldr
- https://startuppedia.in/trending/skyroot-aerospace-completes-raman-1-thruster-test-ahead-of-vikram-1s-second-flight-12800811
- https://idrw.org/skyroots-raman-1-thruster-clears-tests-ahead-of-vikram-1-flight-2/
- https://www.wionews.com/videos/skyroot-gears-up-for-2nd-vikram-1-launch-ships-rocket-s-first-stage-to-sriharikota-1789125619344
- https://x.com/SkyrootA
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram-I
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyroot_Aerospace
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram-S
- https://lokmattimes.com/international/india-brazil-join-forces-to-develop-new-satellite-launch-vehicle-a001-w01/
- https://x.com/SkyrootA/status/2119807273736286482