HYDERABAD: An 18K gold rocket containing micro-sculptures of Sir CV Raman, Dr Vikram Sarabhai and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, smaller than a grain of rice, a diamond jewellery piece and Skyroot’s satellite SCOPE are among payloads Vikram-1 will carry on Skyroot’s maiden mission.The microart gold rocket payload, created by Telangana’s Ajay Kumar Mattewada, features sculptures measuring 700 microns by 980 microns. The artwork honours three figures central to India’s scientific and space heritage, including Sarabhai, after whom Vikram-1 is named.The Cosmic Bloom, developed by Karnataka-based Cosmos Diamonds, is a diamond jewellery piece shaped like a blooming flower mounted on an aluminium base plate.Payloads also include SOLARAS, a 1U CubeSat from Karnataka-based Grahaa Space; Embrace, an in-orbit robotic arm demo from Telangana-based Cosmoserve Space; and uD3PP and mD3RN, in-orbit demonstration payloads from Germany’s DCubed.Embrace will remain attached to Vikram-1’s payload deck during the maiden mission while conducting its robotic arm demo. The company said the mission will support development of soft-robotic capture tech for future space debris removal, in-orbit servicing and orbital sustainability.“Mission Aagaman gave us a platform to rapidly send our systems to space and test them,” said Dr Chiranjeevi Phanindra, CEO of Cosmoserve Space. “Through this mission with Skyroot, we accelerated our soft-robotic capture technology from concept to flight-ready in four months.”Grahaa Space co-founder and CEO Ramesh Kumar V said India’s space sector is witnessing rapid innovation and missions like Vikram-1 expand opportunities for startups. “We are pleased to be part of this mission through SOLARAS, which is a big leap as we develop nextgen satellite platforms from India.”
