Agnikul’s 3D printing rocket engines unit goes live at IIT-M

CHENNAI: Indian space-tech start-up Agnikul, on Wednesday announced the opening of its rocket factory-1, India’s first-ever rocket facility dedicated to 3D printed rocket engines at scale.

The rocket facility, located at IIT Madras Research Park, was unveiled in a launch event by N Chandrasekaran, ChairmanTata Sons and S Somanath, Chairman, ISRO & Secretary, Department of Space.

The facility has a production house with world-class machinery, including a 400mm x 400mm x 400mm metal 3D-printer from EOS, and a host of other machines that will enable end-to-end manufacturing of a rocket engine under one roof. Additionally, the factory has been designed keeping in mind the ability to produce 2 rocket engines per week. Agnikul had entered into an agreement with

EOS in 2021 as their 3D printing partner for engines and this is an important step in seeing that support translate to reality.

Agnibaan is a highly customisable, 2-stage launch vehicle, capable of taking upto 100 kg payload to orbits around 700 km high (low Earth orbits) and enables plug-and-play configuration. Agnilet is the world’s first single-piece 3D printed engine fully designed and manufactured in India and was successfully test-fired in early 2021.

Agnikul showcased this engine at IAC 2021, Dubai.

Srinath Ravichandran, Cofounder-CEO, Agnikul said, “This marks the beginning of a new phase - a phase where we step into scaling and production from R&D & testing.”

Moin SPM, Co-founder, Agnikul said, “This is the first of many milestones we look to achieve in the near future and we will continue to focus and work towards making space the next frontier within reach.”

Founded in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran, Moin SPM and Prof SR Chakravarthy (from IIT-M), Agnikul is on a mission to make space accessible and affordable. The IIT-M incubated start-up became the first Indian company to sign an agreement with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in December 2020. The agreement signed under the IN-SPACe initiative sanctioned Agnikul the access to the Indian space agency’s expertise and facilities to build Agnibaan.

Agnikul has raised a total funding of Rs 105 cr ($15 mn) from Mayfield India, pi Ventures, Speciale Invest and others including prominent angels like Anand Mahindra and Naval Ravikant since 2019.