Agnikul Cosmos: It's definitely rocket science
Agnibaan. The company used an industrial 3D printer to make the semi-cryogenic rocket engine as “a single piece in less than a week—right from the place where the fuel enters the engine, till the exhaust and nozzle," Srinath Ravichandran, Agnikul’s co-founder and CEO, told Mint. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, fabricates complex objects by depositing materials layer by layer.
Raw materials are fed into the 3D printer for the machine to produce the desired part. Agnikul uses Inconel 718, a high-temperature aerospace alloy, to make its rocket engines. The test flight took place from another piece of engineering designed by Agnikul’s team: India’s first private mobile launchpad.
Called Dhanush, the mobile launchpad allows the company the flexibility to launch a rocket from any location. Having tasted success, Agnikul now wants to solve the small-satellite problem by launching “on-demand rockets" from various global locations with its mobile launchpad, and having them “in orbit within two weeks of signing a contract". Currently, many small satellites share rides on larger rockets.
The founders hope that Agnibaan will be the vehicle of choice for entities looking to release such small payloads into space. “Agnibaan can be configured to accommodate payloads ranging between 30kg and 300kg. Hence, anyone with less than 300kg is our target audience," said Srinath.
The key problem isn’t cost but the waiting period, said the Agnikul co-founder. He explained that a typical rocket engine comprises many parts, including a combustion chamber, customized spark plug, an injector, cooling system, copper tubes, nozzles and ignitors, all of which need to be welded, fastened or screwed together. This is a challenge in
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