India becomes third country to achieve private orbital launch, after US and China

India has become the third country in the world to achieve private orbital launch capability, after the United States and China, following the successful launch of a privately developed orbital rocket.

Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian private space company, launched the Vikram-1 orbital rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, on Saturday, according to Yonhap.

The rocket successfully placed its payload into an orbit 450 kilometers above Earth roughly 15 minutes after liftoff. The launch had originally been scheduled for 11:30 a.m. local time but lifted off about 35 minutes behind schedule.

Standing 22 meters tall, the Vikram-1 is designed to carry payloads of up to 350 kilograms into orbit. Skyroot said the test launch allowed the company to validate its propulsion system, avionics and navigation control systems, and to gather data ahead of future commercial launches.

"It was a test flight, but the mission was a resounding success," the company said, adding that it plans to conduct additional test launches before moving to commercial flights.

Skyroot previously launched India's first privately developed rocket, the Vikram-S, to an altitude of 89.5 kilometers in 2022. India opened its rocket and satellite manufacturing and space launch sectors — long monopolized by the government-run Indian Space Research Organisation — to private companies in 2020. Founded in 2018, Skyroot surpassed a valuation of $1 billion earlier this year, earning recognition as the first "unicorn" company in India's space industry.

Meanwhile, India has been consistently expanding its space capabilities — landing the unmanned Chandrayaan-3 probe near the lunar south pole in 2023, the first country in the world to do so, and becoming the first Asian nation and fourth country globally to send a probe to Mars in 2014.