Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharat Daka, alumni of IITs and ex-employees of ISRO, launched India’s first private aerospace company Skyroot Aerospace in the year 2018. The company successfully launched Vikram-S rocket on 18 November 2022, and is now gearing up to launch Vikram-1 rocket in 2024.
New Delhi: Grabbing onto the right opportunities at the right time often take us on the most beautiful adventures. Two friends, Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharat Daka came up with an innovative plan and moved forward with their ideas. Both are IIT alumni and former employees of ISRO.
In the year 2018, these friends launched India’s first private aerospace company ‘Skyroot Aerospace.’ At the time, not a single company was working in the same sector. Pawan Kumar and Naga Bharat found their opportunity and began with their work.
Launching the company
The startup Skyroot Aerospace was founded on 12 June 2018. The biggest obstacle that they faced was of the financial funding. But the proverb ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’ stood true in the case of these two friends. According to some reports, during the launch of the startup, Pawan Kumar met Myntra’s founder Mukesh Bansal, who expressed his interest in investing in the project.
Jobs at ISRO
Pawan Kumar and Naga Bharat received their degrees from IITs. They earned lucrative jobs at Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) but had a dream of venturing into entrepreneurship. They embarked on the ambitious journey of establishing a private space startup with the goal of successfully launching a rocket in the country. In India, space activities are predominantly carried out by ISRO.
Their experience at ISRO gave them valuable insights into space policies. They believed that their successful venture would pave way for more people to invest in the country’s space sector, which would directly strengthen India’s position in the global space arena.
Rocket launches
Skyroot Aerospace successfully launched Vikram-S rocket on 18 November 2022, and the company is now gearing up to launch its first Vikram-1 rocket in 2024, which is a completely made in India rocket.
When Pawan Kumar and Bharat Naga’s space programme Mission Prarambh was launched, their startup was compared with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The latter launched a private liquid fuel rocket into space in the year 2008.
Who is Pawan Kumar Chandana?
Pawan Kumar Chandana earned his degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur. He had a passion for rocket and space science from an early age. During his graduation studies, he did a NASA programme and later joined ISRO as a scientist.
During his time at ISRO, Pawan Kumar crossed paths with Bharat Naga, an IIT graduate. He was working as avionics engineer at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. The two developed a friendship and after researching the space commercial industry, they jointly founded an aerospace company.
Company’s value
Pawan Kumar Chandana worked at ISRO as a scientist for six years. Since the launch of Skyroot Aerospace in the year 2018, the company has secured $95 million in funding. According to some reports, the company’s value in 2022 was around Rs 1,304 crore.
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