Agnikul Cosmos, an Indian space-tech Startup, has announced the opening of its Rocket Factory-1, the country’s first private facility dedicated to building 3D printed rocket engines at scale.
N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons, and S Somanath, Chairman, ISRO and Secretary, Department of Space, inaugurated the unit at the IIT Madras Research Park.
Rocket Factory-1 for 3D Printed Rocket Engines
The IIT Madras Research Park, India’s first university-based research park, is a non-profit organization sponsored by IIT Madras. This facility encourages businesses to establish R&D facilities in the Research Park.
Agnikul Cosmos also unveiled the Rocket Factory-1. This factory houses an EOS M400-4 metal 3D printer, as well as a slew of other machines, allowing for the end-to-end production of a rocket engine under one roof. The factory is designed to produce two rocket engines per week. Agnikul partnered with EOS, a leader in polymer and metal 3D printing systems, last year to accelerate in-house 3D printing of rocket engines. The company intends to create 3D printed rocket engines for its own Agnite and Agnilet rocket engines.
Agnibaan is a two-stage launch vehicle that can carry up to 100 kg of payload to orbits 700 km high (low Earth orbits) and supports plug-and-play configuration. Agnilet is the world’s first single-piece 3D printed rocket engine, designed and manufactured entirely in India. In early 2021, it was successfully tested.
“This marks the beginning of a new phase. A phase where we step into scaling and production from R&D and testing. Any small satellite maker is our customer. They are facing the problem of really large rockets, but satellites have shrunk in size. To go to space, you need to do a ride share. That’s the only way out to space for small satellites. So, we are building small launch vehicles or rockets that can take satellites quickly to space on demand.”
– Srinath Ravichandran, co-founder, and CEO, Agnikul
Agnikul Cosmos is backed by renowned investors like Anand Mahindra and Naval Ravikant.
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