Agnikul ignites India’s first electric motor-driven semi-cryogenic rocket engine

Spacetech startup Agnikul Cosmos successfully fired India’s first electric motor-driven semi-cryogenic engine, cofounder and CEO Srinath Ravichandran announced on Friday.

Ravichandran shared a video of the engine being throttled to different levels of thrust by varying the speed of the electric motor.

Electric motor-driven throttling allows for higher accuracy and rapid response, which is important for handling complex trajectories, Ravichandran wrote in a social media post. Also, regarding flight readiness, this test is a key milestone towards firing a cluster of engines together.


The new electric motor-driven system continues to use Agnikul’s single-piece 3D-printed engine, Ravichandran wrote. Along with the patented engine, many subsystems of the pump were also 3D-printed and assembled at the company’s Rocket Factory-1 facility, the CEO said, adding that the motor drives and associated control software were also fully designed and developed in-house.


Agnikul Cosmos won the Top Innovator award at the Economic Times Startup Awards in 2020.

In May last year, Agnikul successfully carried out a sub-orbital test flight of its home-built 3D-printed semi-cryogenic rocket, Agnibaan, after several hiccups. The IIT-Madras-incubated company also became India’s second private entity after Skyroot Aerospace to launch from a private launch pad.

The rocket used the world’s first 3-D printed single-piece engine, dubbed Agnilet. The indigenous engine is a semi-cryogenic unit using sub-cooled liquid oxygen and aviation turbine fuel (ATF).

Talking to ET in October last year, Ravichandran had said that Agnikul will launch its commercial operations by mid-2025. The space startup was in active discussions with 30 to 40 potential clients, exploring specific demands and use cases for its Agnibaan rocket, cofounder Srinath Ravichandran told ET.

Given the evolving market for small satellite launch vehicles, the company plans to scale its operations to support around 25 launches per year using its mobile launchpad Dhanush at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) facilities.