How Agnikul Cosmos is turning its vision to ‘launch anywhere, anytime, affordably’ a reality
With diverse expertise spanning engineering, manufacturing, and software, Agnikul Cosmos (Agnikul) provides flexible launch services to small satellites. United by its shared vision to make space more accessible, Agnikul believes that space transportation should be completely flexible, allowing customers to meet each mission’s unique requirements. To deliver cost-effective and flexible space launches while still meeting mission demands, Agnikul is championing 3D printing to realize its parts, especially its engines, as a way of reducing costs and also improving reliability and repeatability.
Agnikul was established in 2017 when its founders, Srinath Ravichandran and Moin SPM, identified a gap in the satellite launch industry, where the satellites were shrinking, but the rockets were still large, forcing the small satellites to opt for rideshare. To resolve this, the evolving satellite industry needed a more accessible and flexible launch system for small satellites, and Agnikul aims to solve this requirement.
The company began operations in Chennai, India, and was based at the National Center for Combustion R&D (NCCRD) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM), one of the largest academic combustion centers in the world.
In 2019, Agnikul began signing agreements with potential customers, along with securing a seed round of funding and developing its first single-piece, fully 3D printed engine. The company also became the first space-tech business to sign an agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 2020. Agnikul successfully fired its single-piece 3D printed engine for the first time in 2021, as well as raising its Series A funding during the same year.
In 2022, the company inaugurated two new facilities in the presence of the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO): a state-of-the-art additive manufacturing facility called Agnikul Rocket Factory-01, which can print two rocket engines in a week; and India’s first private launchpad, Agnikul Launchpad-01, at SDSC SHAR. Agnikul qualified its 3D-printed engine for flight in 2023, and successfully completed its maiden mission, Agnibaan SorTeD, Mission-01, from its own launchpad on the 30th of May 2024, marking several firsts in the global space industry.
2025 brought further growth and success for Agnikul, as it achieved AS9100D certification for its Rocket Factory – 01. The company inaugurated its Large Format Additive Metal Manufacturing (LFAMM) facility, which houses India’s largest 3D printer and a depowdering machine, which was designed and manufactured in house, to remove the residual powder from the 3D printed part.
To learn more about how the business is growing, we speak with Co-Founder and COO, Moin SPM. “Here at Agnikul, we build 21st century rockets that are configurable according to the customer requirements and fully reusable. We charge our customers on a per kilogram, so because of the configurability of our vehicle, our customers only pay for what they launch,” Moin opens. “We started out in India in 2017 as the country’s first private launch vehicle company, but we have also now started in the US. We focus on small satellites with a total mass of 100-to-500 kilograms and use innovative manufacturing processes to refine space accessibility.
“The core part of a rocket is its engine, and since the beginning of rocket manufacturing in the space industry, engines have been produced using conventional, subtractive manufacturing methods. However, as 3D printing has evolved over the last few years, we’ve focused on using additive manufacturing methods to develop 3D-printed engines instead of conventional, subtractive manufacturing methods. Today, we’ve got patents for the design and manufacturing of engines from the US, Eurasia, and India, and we have an entire facility dedicated to producing 3D printed, single-piece engines, which, as far as I’m aware, isn’t being done by any other company across the globe.
“There are several advantages to 3D printed engines, as producing the engine in a single piece eliminates the need to assemble or connect multiple parts,” Moin continues. “It also means we can modify the print if needed, rather than being restricted to a certain mold, so we can take findings from our tests and adapt our engines easily. It also takes far less time to produce an engine using 3D printing; it would take around six months to produce an engine using conventional methods whereas we can print one in just three days, or nine days for much larger models. 3D printing also speeds up the qualification process, which typically takes around three months, but our 3D printing machines automatically generate a qualification report that immediately informs us that the engine has been produced according to specific standards. This means we can take the rocket engine off the 3D printer and connect it to the test bed or directly to the rocket straight away.”
Powered by Agnikul’s single-piece 3D printed engine, Agnibaan is a fully indigenous, orbital-class launch vehicle designed to deliver small satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) on demand. Agnibaan SOrTeD, on the other hand, is a sub-orbital launch vehicle designed for low-altitude missions. Initially developed as a technology demonstrator, the vehicle is now a standalone product capable of carrying payloads of up to 30 kilograms, offering a reliable way to reach near-space environments for experimentation and validation purposes.
At the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2025, Agnikul announced its plans to develop reusable rockets, with a vision to drive lower costs for space access. “The concept of reusability has been of interest for quite some time, and we’re planning to create a rocket where the booster stage returns to Earth and can be reused for multiple missions,” Moin explains. “We’re using our in-house patented technology and leveraging support from ISRO and the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe). By reducing costs for our customers, this is a fantastic opportunity to democratize space and enable more people to think about visiting or working in space as a possible reality.”
It’s clear that Moin sees a prosperous future for Agnikul as the company continues to drive greater space transportation accessibility across the globe. “We’ve got an orbital launch scheduled for later in the year, and our primary objective is to take a satellite to space and ensure we return with a booster,” Moin concludes. “As the business continues to grow, we’re aiming to carry out 100 launches over the next five years, and we’d like to be doing around 100 launches per year by 2030 to accelerate our overall mission to make space transportation more accessible and affordable.”