Chennai-based space-tech start-up Agnikul Cosmos has successfully test fired its single piece 3D printed engine Agnilet at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre’s Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in Thiruvananthapuram. The test was conducted with the support of IN-SPACe and ISRO.
The test sought to validate that rocket engines can be made as a single piece of hardware.
The government has recently awarded the start-up a patent for its single-piece rocket engines. Agnilet, one such single piece engine, is the world’s first single-piece 3D printed rocket engine. The engine has fully been designed and manufactured in India. The engine was successfully test-fired at IIT Madras in 2021.
Agnikul had recently announced the inauguration of its Rocket Factory-1, India’s first-ever rocket facility dedicated to 3D print such rocket engines at scale situated at the IIT Madras Research Park.
Incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, it is building India’s first private small satellite rocket, Agnibaan, that will be capable of carrying up to 100 to 300 kg of payload to low Earth orbits up to 700 km, the release said.