A Chennai-based startup AgniKul Cosmos announced on 8th November of the successful test firing of the first ever-single piece 3D printed engine in the world. The test was conducted to check the durability of rocket engines designed in such a manner. AgniKul was founded in 2017 by aerospace engineers Srinath Ravichandran, Moin SPM, and IIT-Madras faculty-Prof. SR Chakravarthy.
AgniKul is the first startup in the space tech sector to sign an agreement with ISRO in December 2020 in order to get access to ISRO’s expertise and facilities. AgniKul received funding of $15 million from Pi Ventures, Mayfield India, Speciale Invest, and a few other angel investors, which include Naval Ravikant and Anand Mahindra.
The trials were held at the Vertical test facility of Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) in Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala). VSSC is a major research facility of the national space agency the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
Everyone at AgniKul stated that the moment of this successful testing could never be forgotten. Co-founder and CEO, Srinath Ravichandran said, “Besides validating our in-house technology, this is also a huge step in understanding how to design, develop, and fire rocket engines at a professional level.”
This indigenous rocket was first tested in the year 2021 at IIT Madras. Setting new standards in the startup world where such designs have been given a go-ahead along with the manufacturing methodology followed by AgniKul.
AgniKul has patented the designing and manufacturing of single-piece 3D-printed rockets in-house. The startup has also set up Rocket Factory-1. This is the country’s first Rocket facility where rocket engines will be printed on a large scale. The facility has been set up at IIT Madras consisting of top-notch machinery that is currently available in the market.
Co-founder & COO, Moin SPM said “The private space ecosystem is growing in the right direction and also gets access to the state-of-art technologies to make and test world-class products inside the country.” The company is currently involved in the production of the designs that have been tested.
