A private launchpad and mission control center is established within the ISRO campus at Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC),SHAR, Sriharikota, for the first time. The launchpad is designed and operated by a private company, an Indian space-tech start-up, Agnikul.
The facility was inaugurated on November 25, 2022 by Shri S. Somanath, Chairman, ISRO & Secretary, Department of Space (DOS). Senior ISRO officials including the directors of various ISRO centers also attended the function. On the occasion, S. Somanath expressed pleasure over the establishment of the first private launch pad in the country and endorsed that, now, India can travel to space from one more space platform.
Srinath Ravichandran, Co-founder & CEO, Agnikul mentioned that the ability to launch from one’s own launchpad while still working with ISRO’s launch operations teams is a privilege that ISRO & IN-SPACe have granted and that he is deeply grateful for the same. Moin SPM, Co-founder, Agnikul thanked ISRO and IN-SPACe for the consistent support for realising Agnikul’s launchpad inside Sriharikota and acknowledged that the new reforms brought by DOS truly accommodate everyone’s dream of going to space.
Establishment of this private launchpad marks a significant step in opening the Indian space sector to private players and affirms the commitment of ISRO/DOS for facilitating the same. The current facility has a launchpad and a mission control center. The latter is about 4 km away from the launchpad. The system compliant to support liquid stage-controlled launches, monitor key flight safety parameters by ISRO’s range operations teams during launches and share the data with ISRO’s Mission Control Center.
Agnikul plans to guide & control their upcoming launches from this facility. In their first launch, a 2-stage launch vehicle, Agnibaan is intended to carry a payload of up to 100 kg to around 700 km altitude.
