Skyroot Aerospace, therefore, has become the first Indian startup to formally enter into an agreement with ISRO to access its assets since the Modi government’s new policy decision was announced in May last year, when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced The space sector was opened up and ISRO facilities for private players.
ISRO’s scientific secretary and interim IN-SPACe committee chairman R ummaheshwaran, who represented DoS, and skyroot Aerospace CEO Pawan Chandana signed a Framework MoU on Saturday. During the signing of the MoU, representatives of Skyroute met ISRO Chairman K Sivan and presented the status of their space activities. Sivan assured all possible support to the Skyroute team for the successful implementation of their launch vehicle programme.
Speaking to TOI, ISRO Chairman said, “Two companies – Agnikul and Skyroute Aerospace – are working on small rockets and hence they have approached us to use our facilities to launch their vehicles. We have signed Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) first with Agnikul and then with Skyroot Aerospace. NDA It is signed before we disclose our facilities and technical expertise to a company. Only once the NDA is signed can we allow a company to visit our facilities. Once the company has visited our facilities and interacted with ISRO officials, we sign a framework MoU with them. So Skyroot is the first company with which we have signed MoU. Agnikul is also expected to sign the MoU soon.
An ISRO statement said the MoU will enable Skyroute to use multiple test and access facilities at various ISRO centers and help leverage the space agency’s technical expertise.
Skyroute Aerospace is developing its first launch vehicle, Vikram-I, which is on track for an expected launch next year. In August 2020, the company came into limelight when it tested the Raman-I hypergolic-fuel upper stage (named after CV Raman). This solid-fuel upper stage is a component of Vikram-I and Skyroute Aerospace was the first indigenous private unit to test such a stage. On December 22, 2020, Skyroute Aerospace test-fired the solid-fuel rocket engine Kalam-5, the first of the five planned carbon-composite Kalam rocket motors that are expected to power the launch vehicles.
Skyroot Aerospace was formed in January 2017 by a small group of entrepreneurs including former ISRO scientists Pawan Kumar Chandana, Naga Bharat Daka and Vasudevan Gyangandhi as well as CureFit founders Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagaur. The company has raised $11 million in its Series A round of funding. That’s almost 10 times the $1.5 million raised in 2018 by rocket manufacturing entrepreneurs, Chandana and Daka. Most recently, Daca, co-founder and COO of Skyroute Aerospace, said, “We intend to raise $40 million more to fund our aggressive growth plans over the next few years.”
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