Startup Skyroot Aerospace might be small in scale, but its founders Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka have made Indian spacefaring history with the successful launch of their Vikram-S rocket—the first privately built space rocket from India
Pawan Kumar Chandana (left) and Naga Bharath Daka, co-founders, Skyroot Aerospace
Image: Madhu Kapparath
This year, as Forbes India looked at candidates for ‘Emerging Innovator’—a new category under our annual flagship leadership awards—there were several deserving entrepreneurs who stood out, in sectors ranging from electric vehicles to health care to space faring.
The idea was to recognise entrepreneurs tackling technically daunting problems with ventures that would require years of perseverance and a fair amount of money, with no guarantees of even technological success. Commercial orders would come much later, in very competitive arenas.
Skyroot Aerospace’s Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka stood taller than the rest, as they made Indian spacefaring history, with the successful launch of their Vikram-S rocket—the first privately built space rocket from India—in November 2022. The successful flight test showed off both the tech readiness of the Hyderabad-based venture and commercial prospects ahead.
“Rockets are the only way to take something from Earth to space,” Chandana points out, talking about their ambition to build space launch vehicles. “We believe space technology can transform human lives, but today space access is expensive and unreliable.”
Skyroot is on a mission to build rockets that can make space launches reliable and affordable. “That’s the core problem we have set out to solve,” he adds.
(This story appears in the 31 March, 2023 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)