Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-I lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on July 18, 2026, on a mission the company named Aagaman, Sanskrit for arrival.
The four-stage, expendable rocket placed its payloads into orbit roughly 15 minutes after liftoff, carrying a mix of Indian satellites, including SCOPE, SOLARAS S3 and EMBRACE, alongside German payloads UD3PP and mD3RN, and two Indian nanosatellites, Cosmic Bloom and Micro Art Tribute.
The successful flight made India the third country, after the United States and China, with a private company capable of reaching orbit, a milestone for Skyroot, which had earlier tested its smaller sub-orbital Vikram-S rocket in 2022.
Vikram-I launched from ISRO's spaceport under a facilitation arrangement that has let Indian private space startups use government launch infrastructure, a model the sector is counting on as more commercial rockets move toward orbital flight.
