Telangana’s IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao on said the state will have the country’s first integrated rocket design, manufacturing and testing facility in Hyderabad by Skyroot Aerospace.
Further Development
The state IT Minister K. Tarakarama Rao has assured the start-up of complete support for establishing the facility to design, manufacture, and test rockets in the state. He participated in a programme organized at T-Hub to celebrate Skyroot Aerospace’s successful launch of the Vikram-S rocket.
About The Skyroot
The Hyderabad-based startup, incubated at T-Hub, launched the country’s first private rocket. Skyroot Aerospace became the first privately held company in India after the space sector was opened for private players by the union government in 2020.
Skyroot Aerospace wants to build high-technology, low-cost, reliable launch vehicles. Its co-founders Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka previously worked with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as rocket scientists for about a handful of years before starting up in 2018.
The Minister expressed pride and happiness that a space tech company from Hyderabad, broke all the barriers. He said only a few companies across the world aced rocket science and achieved success in the first go.
India & Space Economy
The global space economy is valued at just over $450 billion, out of which India’s share is roughly about 2 per cent. The key to increasing India’s contribution to the global space output lies with the private sector.
The government of India opened the space sector to private enterprises and made room for sharing ISRO know-how and infrastructure with private players.
In 2021, Skyroot formally signed up with ISRO. By entering into an agreement with the Department of Space on 2 February, it secured access to ISRO’s facilities and technical expertise as they went about developing their launch vehicles. Over a year later, in June 2022, the Hyderabad-based startup signed an agreement (MoU) with the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), which enabled the launch of its rockets from the ISRO spaceport.
