India's First Private Orbital Rocket Vikram-1 Launches Saturday, July 18

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An Indian company will make history early Saturday morning (July 18), and you can watch the action live.

Skyroot Aerospace plans to launch its Vikram-1 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, on the Indian barrier island of Sriharikota, on Saturday at 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT; 11:30 a.m. India Standard Time). Vikram-1 is the first-ever privately built Indian orbital rocket , so its liftoff could blaze a new trail for the nation and for commercial spaceflight.

You can watch the launch live via Skyroo t starting at around 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT). Space.com will carry the feed as well, if the company makes it available.

Aerial view of Skyroot Aerospace's Infinity Campus in Hyderabad, India, showing a life-size model of the company's Vikram-1 rocket outside. (Image credit: Sumil Sudhakaran/Skyroot Aerospace) Skyroot Aerospace is based in the central Indian city of Hyderabad and was founded in 2018. The company made history four years later with its Vikram-S suborbital rocket, becoming the first private Indian outfit ever to reach space.

Vikram-1 is the next step for Skyroot: an orbital vehicle. The four-stage, seven-story-tall rocket is a small-satellite launcher; it can haul about 770 pounds (350 kilograms) of payload to low Earth orbit , according to the company.

"The small satellite launch market is deeply constrained on the supply side," Skyroot Co-founder and CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana said in an emailed statement on Thursday (July 16).

"At the same time, the demand for services enabled by satellites in space will only continue to grow, and that is where Skyroot's opportunity lies," he added.

The company will begin exploiting that opportunity on Saturday morning, with a test flight called Aagaman (Sanskrit for "Arrival"). The main goal is to see how Vikram-1 and its various systems perform during flight. But the rocket is also carrying some customer payloads , which will be deployed at an altitude of 280 miles (450 kilometers), if all goes according to plan.

Those payloads include a technology demonstration from the German company DCUBED; the Solaras S3 nanosatellite pathfinder from Indian startup Grahaa Space; and Embrace, a robotic arm built by the Indian company Cosmoserve Space that's designed to capture space debris .

Vikram-1 is also carrying Skyroot's SCOPE satellite, which will collect a variety of data to help the company assess the rocket's performance during flight. There are two symbolic payloads on board as well — a small, 18-karat gold rocket from the artist Ajay Kumar Mattewada and "Cosmic Bloom," which was designed by Cosmos Diamonds, a company that makes jewelry using lab-grown gems.

It’s official. 🚀July 18. 11:30 AM IST.Vikram-1. Test Flight-1. Mission Aagaman.India’s first private orbital launch from the historic First Launch Pad at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota.The countdown begins. 🇮🇳#Vikram1 #MissionAagaman #SkyrootAerospace #OpeningSpaceForAll pic.twitter.com/tGHCbQzsm8 July 16, 2026

"What we are aiming to do on 18 July is bigger than a single launch. It represents the hopes and hard work of around 1,000 people, the contributions of over 400 suppliers, and nearly 3,000 days of resolve to build a global offering from India," Skyroot Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Naga Bharath Daka said in the same statement.

"With the in-flight data gathered from this mission, we will return to the shop floor to learn, improve, and build further," added Daka, who, like Chandana, used to work for the Indian Space Research Organisation . "This test flight is the first step towards creating a reliable, on-demand launch company for the world from India."

Skyroot has some leeway if Vikram-1 isn't able to fly as planned on Saturday: The current launch window runs through Aug. 4.