Roommate dreams morphed into Skyroot Aerospace, with IIT alumni Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka rewriting the commercial space sector in India from scratch with the common vision of ‘Opening Space for All’.
Anindita Nayak
Bhubaneswar, 5 September 2026
An ISRO Shared Room and an Audacious Vision:
Long before they traversed the structured corridors of the Indian Space Research Organization and made history, Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka were good friends and roommates. In their off-hours, Pawan and Bharath, an IIT Kharagpur and an IIT Madras alumnus, respectively (who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a master’s degree in Microelectronics and VLSI Design) dreamt of something larger. Convinced that space should not be the exclusive domain of national governments, the two young scientists left the safety of their government jobs in 2018 and created Skyroot Aerospace with a simple, revolutionary guiding philosophy: “Opening Space for All.”
Making a $1.1 Billion Pioneer:
Skyroot was born at a time when government reforms were opening the Indian space ecosystem for private participation with major policy shifts. Pawan took the opportunity to step in as Chief Executive Officer and Bharath took up the role of Chief Operating Officer, directly handling operations, avionics and guidance, navigation and control systems. Over the years, their startup has grown into India’s first space unicorn, now valued at around $1.1 billion. Skyroot has raised more than $100 million in funding from marquee global and domestic investors like Temasek, Meraki Labs, founders of Greenko Group, Solar Group, Sherpalo Ventures, Worldquant Ventures, AUM Ventures and Graph Ventures. Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Asia list and India Today’s Next 100 Young Achievers recognised Pawan’s visionary leadership.
Mission Prarambh:
The defining breakthrough for the company was the launch of Mission Prarambh on November 18, 2022. Skyroot’s sub-orbital Vikram-S rocket was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, with the approval of IN-SPACe, the regulatory body under the Department of Space which promotes private enterprise. That historic flight marked the first successful flight of a privately built rocket to space in India and South Asia. The sub-orbital mission had validated key baseline systems including solid propulsion, avionics, aerodynamic trajectory modelling and thermal management with an all-carbon composite structure and 3D-printed spin thrusters.
The Seven-Storey Vikram-1 Rocket:
With Mission Aagman, Skyroot took its boldest leap yet by scaling those core technologies up into the much larger Vikram-1, an orbital-class vehicle designed specifically to serve the international commercial launch market. Named in honor of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space program, Vikram-1 stands about seven storeys tall.The rocket features a complex multi-layer structure with three solid motor stages topped by a liquid-fuel upper stage for precise insertion into orbit. It’s packed with innovation, including an all-carbon composite body, miniaturised avionics, high-thrust motors, a 3D-printed hypergolic engine and a multi-restart orbital adjustment module for flexible, cost-effective satellite placement.
A High-Tech Ecosystem and a Trail of Industry Firsts:
Skyroot has built world-class manufacturing facilities in Hyderabad to support its rapid innovation cycle and is focused on building advanced manufacturing capabilities like carbon composite manufacturing and 3D printing of engines. The company has built one of the largest private space engineering teams in the country, with more than 1,000 employees. This dynamic team brings together over 2,000 years of collective rocket engineering experience, with a surprisingly young average age of only 28 years. Skyroot has a unique set of regional firsts in its journey till now including the development and test firing of South Asia’s first privately built cryogenic engine, first privately built Earth storable engine and first privately built solid fuel stage.
The moment that defines India’s private space future:
With Vikram-1’s successful orbit from Sriharikota, Skyroot has firmly established itself to serve the skyrocketing global demand for small satellite launches in communications, Earth observation, navigation and scientific research. This successful mission is a milestone for the entire country and demonstrates that private enterprise can deliver high-cadence, on-demand domestic space access. For Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, seeing their rocket reach the stars is a paradigm shift in Indian spaceflight: it shows that India’s next giant leap is launching not just from government laboratories, but from the visionary minds of young entrepreneurs.
