New Delhi: Agnikul Cosmos, a Chennai-based space tech startup, whose Rocket Factory-1 was recently inaugurated, says it is India’s first such facility dedicated to making 3D-printed rocket engines at scale. Situated at the IIT Madras Research Park and spread over 10,000 sq. ft., the facility was inaugurated formally by Chairman of Tata Sons, N. Chandrasekaran and Chairman , ISRO S. Somanath in the presence of Pawan Goenka, Chairman of IN-SPACe.
The space tech startup designs, manufactures, tests and launches orbital class rockets for micro and nano satellites and has raised a total of $14.5M in funding over five rounds with the latest on May 19, 2021 from a Series A round. The startup which is funded by 18 investors was launched in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran, Moin SPM, and Prof SR Chakravarthy and was incubated at IIT Madras.
The company was started with a seed funding of Rs 3 crore (equivalent to Rs 3.6 crore or US$470,000 in 2020) aimed to develop the ability to provide launch service for satellites weighing up to 500 kg (1,100 lb). The start-up later managed to raise up to Rs 23.4 crore (US$3.1 million) from investors and by 2020 end touched almost $4 million. The company inked a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with Department of Space to obtain government’s technological assistance in development of launch vehicles. AgniKul has received investment from personal capacity of Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group though the amount was not specified.
In February 2021, Agnikul test fired its semi-cryogenic rocket engine Agnilet which will power second stage of its rocket Agnibaan for the first time. The engine has been developed in single-piece through 3D printing with no assembled parts.
Agnibaan or ‘Arrow of fire’ is envisaged to be a mobile launch system capable of placing a 100 kg (220 lb) satellite into a 700 km (430 mile) orbit. The rocket will be 18 meters long with a diameter of 1.3 meters and a lift-off mass of 14,000 kg (31,000 lb). It will use clustered engines on first stage in various configurations depending upon the payload and will only use LOX and Kerosene based engines. The rocket is supposed to be manufactured by 3D printing.
As its founder Ravichandran Srinath said on the building of India’s first private small satellite rocket, Agnibaan, “using the machine, we aim to make at least two rocket engines a week and have plans to expand it to four engines a week,” and elaborating further, he said “essentially, the raw materials go in, and what comes out of this facility is a fully made rocket engine system.”
The 3D printer is from a Germany-based company called EOS. Apart from this printer, the facility has other machines that are required to make, assemble and integrate the rocket engine. At its Rocket Factory – 1, Agnikul will make semi-cryogenic rocket engines, meaning they burn kerosene and liquid oxygen, which is in a cryogenic state or cold state.
“These engines are actually fully 3D printed in one shot. We have also filed for a patent on this one where the entire rocket engine has zero assembly parts involved in it. The design is being pushed to a point where the whole engine is like a single piece component,” Srinath said.
Agnikul makes two types of engines, Agnilet and Agnite. In early 2021, Agnikul successfully test-fired the world’s first single-piece, fully 3D-printed rocket engine called Agnilet. The startup showcased this engine at IAC 2021, Dubai. The second engine is Agnite, which is the first stage engine and will be developed and manufactured in this facility. Srinath said there are close to seven versions of this engine in the first stage. This engine, unlike Agnilet, has not undergone testing.
“We are able to actually move our delivery of the engine within a very short period of time with no human intervention in the process and a completely automated process,” Srinath added. “This is a big advantage as once we start the production of a rocket engine, the rockets can also be made faster which will in turn help scale at lesser costs, in terms of production, and lesser pain for the customer as it will match their conditions much better,” he said.
Agnibaan has the capability for a plug-and-play engine configuration that is configurable to precisely match any upcoming mission needs. These engines built in this facility will be the core for this vehicle to be launched toward the end of this year.
“We are attempting to launch later part of this year,” said Srinath. “We are working with Israel on the paperwork and all of the interface requirements required to get this to work. The target is we should be ready by the end of this year.”
Agnikul has raised a total funding of $15 million from Mayfield India, pi Ventures, Speciale Invest, and several prominent angels such as Anand Mahindra, Chairman of Mahindra Group and Naval Ravikant, American entrepreneur co-founder, chairman and former CEO of AngelList. When asked for the investment that went into this project, Agnikul did not want to divulge details but its co-founder Srinath said the start-up will make two rocket engines per week. “We are now stepping into scaling and production from R&D and testing,” he added.
The start-up had said that Agnibaan will be launched in 2022. Srinath said, “We are targeting to launch it by end of this year. Work is going on.” Agnikul is looking at setting up another facility and is working on the details. Till date, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M), has incubated start-up has raised a total funding of Rs 105 crore ($15 million) from Mayfield India, pi Ventures, Speciale Invest and a host of other prominent angels like Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra and Naval Ravikant.
