Countdown stopped 11 minutes before launch, contact lost in flight, yet history was created by Skyroot’s Vikram-1

Skyroot Aerospace has successfully sent India’s first private rocket into space. But as easy as this mission appeared from outside, it was equally stressful for the engineers sitting inside. A technical problem occurred a few minutes before the launch and contact with the rocket was lost for some time during the flight.

India’s private space company Skyroot Aerospace created history with its Vikram-1 rocket. It became India’s first private rocket, which successfully reached the Earth’s orbit and released all its customer satellites at the right place.

But this success was not so easy. To those watching from outside, the launch appeared absolutely normal, but for the engineers sitting in the mission control room, every minute was no less than a thriller film.

Company co-founder and CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana said that during the entire mission there were many such moments when no one knew what was going to happen next.

Problem occurred just 11 minutes before launch

According to Pawan Kumar Chandana, a software problem occurred just 11 minutes before the launch began. The automatic launch system detected the error and the countdown automatically stopped. The good thing was that the problem was not in the rocket, but there was a small glitch in the software of the launch system.

Engineers immediately stopped the countdown and fixed it and then started the launch process again. Everything started working properly the second time. However, even after this the team was not completely sure. Everyone was afraid that some new problem might arise again.

Contact lost during flight

After the rocket took off, another big challenge emerged. When Vikram-1 was reaching its orbit, the company lost contact with the rocket for some time.

This happened because telemetry (data coming from the rocket) stopped being received from a ground station abroad. For a few minutes the engineers did not know whether the rocket was working properly or not.

Later, when the rocket reached the range of the next ground station in Australia, contact was established again. Only then did the team come to know that the rocket had completed all the necessary tasks correctly and all the satellites had been successfully released into space.

finally got a chance to celebrate

Chandana said that the entire mission was like a suspense film. After each stage was completed, the team was waiting for the next update. No one heaved a sigh of relief until confirmation of success was received from every system.

With this mission, Skyroot Aerospace created a new history in India’s space sector. The company has joined the few private companies in the world which successfully sent the rocket to Earth’s orbit in its very first attempt. Only after getting confirmation that all the satellites were positioned correctly, the team present in Mission Control celebrated this great success.