Vikram 1 lifted-off as if in a hurry from the First Launch Pad on 18 July 2026 at 12:05 PM. It cleared the launch pad and headed to orbit and placed two satellites in orbit. We now have India’s first successful launch of a launch vehicle by a non-governmental entity.
I live-tooted on Mastodon where things remain calm. People just went crazy on X. A stream of congratulations followed.
Before lift-off
I have been recovering after a surgery earlier in the week. Hence, my father was also at home. I casted the webcast on YouTube on my TV. I was active on WhatsApp, Mastodon, and X.
The webcast commentary frequently spoke over the callouts. You could hear the callouts better on the X webstream. However, I was not able to cast the X webstream on the TV.
The lift-off reached a hold 5 minutes before lift-off scheduled for 11:30 AM. We saw that it was a Navigation Monitoring Failure hold. After a few minutes of discussions, the Automatic Launch Sequence was re-started with the lift-off time set to 12:05 PM. There were some anxious faces in the Mission Control Center.
Countdown and Lift-off
I breathed the first sigh of relief when the countdown went beyond the 5 minute mark. As the countdown went into 5 second call outs to each second countdown to zero, there was a great sense of being part of history.
I felt there was a brief pause before the launch vehicle leaped off the launch pad. Lift-off and clearing the launch pad was an important launch milestone. The launch vehicle had not exploded on or off the launch pad. That was an achievement!
The camera angle immediately after lift-off felt weird. The cheers from the Skyroot Aerospace team went over the calls for MaxQ. The graphs were textbook for the first two stages.
There were some beautiful on-board camera views. The blue Earth just beyond the plume of the solid stage was a sight to behold.
Trouble (that did not affect the overall launch) seems to start after the Stage III cutoff. There was a combined coast phase where the spent third stage flew with the fourth stage. When the third stage separated, it seemed to push towards the fourth stage and hit it gently.
There seemed to be worry also when there seemed to be a temporary loss of signal from the vehicle a little after fourth stage ignition and well before satellite separation.
It may have been because the signal switch between Indonesia and Australia or because the stage may have rolled.
We got back to images of the Earth in the background. There was another round of celebration. More followed when the satellites separated. The indications on the screen seemed to indicate they had planned somethings that didn’t work but they skipped mentioning them until they happened.
The image of the Sun rising over the payloads seen through the Cosmic diamond was just a goosebump-inducing experience.
I switched off the webcast after the end of the stream with the announcement of completion of a mission. I then hung out on X asking questions and listening to answers.
Payloads
Grahaa Space announced that it has achieved mission objectives.
Cosmoserve Space said that “The robotic petals which were supposed to open could not do so due to an unusual settling of the petals which might have been caused by a combination of extreme space conditions.”
There was nothing heard about the Skyroot’s SCOPE satellite.
There was independent confirmation of mission success by Space Force.
Congratulations and God Speed! Skyroot Aerospace.
The live webcast was taken down and a new trimmed video was uploaded after the Prime Minister’s mobile number leaked on the live webcast.
Parallel Spirals 