Skyroot Aerospace, a Hyderabad based start-up in the space sector, has successfully test-fired a solid propulsion rocket engine named Kalam-5.

It is the country’s first private sector company to successfully test-fire a solid propulsion rocket stage engine designed and developed by it. It has been built with advanced carbon composite structure in a completely automated process. A carbon composite case is challenging to design and manufacture and is five times lighter than steel.

With this test, along with its Raman Engine (liquid propulsion) test-firing done in August 2020, Skyroot has demonstrated all propulsion technologies in Vikram-1 vehicle.

This is Skyroot’s first of five Kalam series of solid rocket motors. The remaining four motors are in various stages of manufacturing and are expected to be tested in 2021.

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Major milestone

Kalam-5 is a demonstrator solid rocket propulsion stage with exactly same propellant, materials and interfaces as the three solid propulsion stages of Vikram-1 launch vehicle. It gives a peak Sea Level thrust of 5.3kN and is designed to take 66 atmospheres and 30000C of combustion pressure and temperature respectively. This is also 1:4 scale in size of Vikram-1 third stage.

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Solid motors are high-thrust, low-cost rocket engines with propellant in solid form. They are highly reliable as they have very few moving parts.

Testing was done at a private test facility last week (December 22) in Nagpur owned by Solar Industries, a major explosives manufacturer and a leading Space and Defence contractor and also a partner and investor in Skyroot.

“Kalam-5 uses 15 different advanced materials, nine different manufacturing processes, and has zero moving parts,” Pawan Kumar Chandana, Co-Founder and CEO of Skyroot, said.

“We named our solid propulsion stages as a tribute to our beloved and renowned rocket scientist Dr APJ Abdul Kalam,” Naga Bharath Daka, Co-Founder and COO, said.

“This is a major milestone for Skyroot and for the Indian private space sector. The test results closely matched our predictions and this success gives great confidence for our Vikram-I vehicle development,” Chandana said.

“Test-firing of Vikram-1 launch vehicle’s 3rd Stage (Kalam-100) is planned in a few months at ISRO facilities,” Daka said. The start-up is aiming at its first launch vehicle Vikram-I with the help of ISRO in December 2021. It is now being manufactured.

Skyroot is backed by funding by Mukesh Bansal of Myntra, Solar Industries, Vedanshu Investments and others.