The country’s first private launchpad and mission control centre has been established within the ISRO campus at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota. The launchpad is designed and operated by Chennai-based space-tech startup AgniKul Cosmos.
The facility was inaugurated by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman and Secretary in the Department of Space, S Somanath, on November 25.
The chairman expressed pleasure over the establishment of the first private launchpad in the country and said “India can now travel to space from one more space platform”, an ISRO statement said.
AgniKul, incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT Madras), plans to guide and control its upcoming launches from this facility.
In its first launch, a two-stage launch vehicle, ‘Agnibaan’ is intended to carry a payload of up to 100 kilograms to around 700 km altitude, the statement said.