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EDITORIAL
SOUMI MITRA
Editor-in-Chief
Modern Manufacturing India
soumi.mitra@magicwandmedia.in To date, the national space agency ISRO has been responsible for developing,
12 | November-December 2022
AIM FOR THE MOON.
IF YOU MISS,
YOU MAY HIT A STAR!
ecently, Skyrocket Aerospace, a Hyderabad-based Indian startup, founded
R by former Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) engineers, created
history in the Indian space sector. For the first time, a home-grown
company manufactured a launch vehicle Vikram-S that carried three payloads
and stepped into commercial space exploration.
The rocket is named after Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space program.
Vikram-S is a six-meter-long rocket, developed in a span of two years and made
of an all-carbon fiber core structure, and weighs 546 kg. It is a single-stage, spin-
stabilized solid-propellant rocket with a mass of around 550 kg. The rocket is
said to have reached a peak altitude of 55.6 miles, which is higher than NASA's
designated Earth-space boundary of 50 miles.
designing, and launching rockets, space explorations, and missions. Skyroot
Aerospace paved the way for private companies to enter this domain with its
maiden ‘Prarambh’ mission. It marked a new era of the private sector being
capable of not only developing and designing these launch vehicles but also
attracting customers and investments into the sector.
It is slated that the startup entity received a total funding of $68 million,
including $17 million raised through a seed round, Series A and a bridge round,
and $51 million in a Series B round.
Never before has the Indian space sector attracted such huge investments.
As per reports, in the year 2022, funding to private space sector players has
witnessed an increase of 61.5 percent, soaring to US$ 108.52 million as compared
to US$ 67.2 million in 2021.
The accomplishment proves India’s potential as an investment destination
and frugal engineering is acknowledged globally. The advanced technologies
available these days for manufacturing cost-effective products is a pay-off to
India coming a long way in establishing itself as an innovation hub.
It, thus, becomes highly
crucial that we bring
“She had long ago learned an together our engineering
important lesson: there was marvels and showcase
our progress proudly to
always a way to wrestle with the world. For which,
the impossible.” IMTMA offers us the
platform of IMTEX
- Suzanne Selfors 2023 & Tooltech 2023 at
Bangalore International
Exhibition Center from
January 19-25, 2023. The
manufacturing technology show being held after a hiatus of four years is bound
to be the cynosure for the entire manufacturing community. If you have not
registered yet, we urge you to visit https://imtex2023-imtma.expoplatform.
com/index/registration and do not miss being part of the mammoth event.
Modern Manufacturing India