This facility encourages businesses to establish R&D facilities in the Research Park.

India-based space company Agnikul Cosmos has announced the opening of its Rocket Factory-1, a private facility dedicated to building 3D printed rocket engines at scale.

Described as the first in the country, the facility has been inaugurated at the IIT Madras Research Park alongside N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons, and S. Somanath, Chairman, ISRO and Secretary, Department of Space. The IIT Madras Research Park, a university-based research park, is a non-profit organization sponsored by IIT Madras.

Agnikul Cosmos also unveiled the Rocket Factory-1. With an in-house EOS M400-4 metal 3D printer, as well as a series of other machines, the team at Agnikul Cosmos is well equipped to achieve end-to-end production of a rocket engine under one roof. The factory is designed to produce two rocket engines per week. Moving forward, the company aims to create 3D printed rocket engines for its own Agnite and Agnilet rocket engines.

Agnibaan is a two-stage launch vehicle that can carry up to 100 kg of payload to orbits 700 km high (low Earth orbits) and supports plug-and-play configuration. Agnilet is the world’s first single-piece 3D printed rocket engine, designed and manufactured entirely in India. In early 2021, it was successfully tested, a press communication reads.

“This marks the beginning of a new phase. A phase where we step into scaling and production from R&D and testing. Any small satellite maker is our customer. They are facing the problem of really large rockets, but satellites have shrunk in size. To go to space, you need to do a ride share. That’s the only way out to space for small satellites. So, we are building small launch vehicles or rockets that can take satellites quickly to space on demand”, Srinath Ravichandran, co-founder, and CEO, Agnikul states.

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