Agnikul Cosmos

Agnikul Cosmos builds Agnibaan, a small rocket that runs on engines printed in one piece. Each engine, called Agnilet, comes out of a 3D printer with no welding or bolting, and burns jet fuel with liquid oxygen. The company says it can finish two engines a week at its factory in the IIT Madras Research Park in Chennai. The rocket is modular. Engines can be added or removed to suit the payload, and the largest version is meant to carry up to 300 kg to low orbit.

Srinath Ravichandran and Moin SPM started Agnikul in 2017 with SR Chakravarthy, a professor at IIT Madras, which incubated it. In November 2022 the chairman of ISRO opened India's first private launch pad and mission control centre, which Agnikul had built at Sriharikota. The first launch from it took several attempts. Tries in March, April and May 2024 were called off, one of them 92 seconds before liftoff. On 30 May 2024 the single-stage SOrTeD demonstrator made a 66-second powered flight and came down in the Bay of Bengal. The company says it was the first flight anywhere on a single-piece 3D-printed engine.

Agnikul has not yet flown to orbit. Its website lists two orbital missions for the first half of 2027, carrying up to 100 kg and then up to 300 kg. In May 2026 it fired four Agnilet engines together as a cluster, which an orbital Agnibaan needs. In September India's Technology Development Board agreed to provide ₹200 crore toward a reusable version of the rocket.