India's 2023 space policy lets private companies launch rockets, and IN-SPACe has now issued 113 authorisations to 52 non-government entities

A private company that wants to launch a rocket in India needs an authorisation from IN-SPACe, the Department of Space body that regulates and promotes activity by non-government entities. The Indian Space Policy 2023 lists “the launch and operation of launch vehicles including sub-orbital launches” among the activities IN-SPACe authorises. In a Rajya Sabha reply on 13 August 2026, the Minister of State for Atomic Energy and Space said IN-SPACe had granted 113 authorisations to 52 non-government entities, 18 of them startups.

Three private rockets have flown from Sriharikota under this system so far: Skyroot’s Vikram-S in November 2022, Agnikul’s Agnibaan SOrTeD in May 2024 and Skyroot’s Vikram-1, which reached orbit on 18 July 2026. This article follows the paperwork behind them.

The Cabinet decision of June 2020

On 24 June 2020 the Union Cabinet approved reforms “aimed at boosting private sector participation in the entire range of space activities”, in the words of the Press Information Bureau’s release. The release gave each organisation a job. IN-SPACe would give private companies a level playing field to use Indian space infrastructure and would guide them through the rules. NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the Department of Space’s commercial company, would move space activity from a supply-driven model to a demand-driven one. ISRO would concentrate on research, new technologies, exploration missions and human spaceflight, and some planetary missions would be opened to private firms through an “announcement of opportunity”.

IN-SPACe’s own release of May 2024 says the centre was constituted in October 2021. A PIB release of November 2022 dates its conception to the June 2020 decision.

What the 2023 policy lets a company do

The Indian Space Policy 2023 runs to 11 pages and was released in April 2023, according to IN-SPACe. It says non-government entities may undertake end-to-end activities in the space sector. Permitted activities include manufacturing and operating launch vehicles, designing reusable and recoverable systems (ISRO’s own trials are in the reusable launch vehicle landing experiments), and establishing and operating launch infrastructure. Indian users of space services, public or private, are free to buy them from any source, public or private.

The policy describes IN-SPACe as an autonomous government organisation and the single-window agency for authorisations. Activities that need its permission include:

• establishing and operating space objects, meaning satellites and similar hardware;
• launching and operating launch vehicles, including sub-orbital launches;
• establishing and operating launch pads, whether owned, leased or mobile;
• planned re-entry of space objects, with or without recovery;
• distributing high-resolution Earth observation data, defined as a ground sampling distance of 30 centimetres or finer.

The agency also authorises launch manifests for launch infrastructure built with public money, so private companies get a fair turn on government launch sites. The policy tells ISRO to move out of manufacturing operational space systems and hand mature systems to industry, and it makes NSIL responsible for commercialising technology created with public money. A later document covers the practical side: IN-SPACe’s Norms, Guidelines and Procedures, released in May 2024, list the activities needing authorisation and set the criteria and prerequisites an applicant must meet.

Vikram-S: the first launch through IN-SPACe

Vikram-S flew before the 2023 policy was published, under the mandate the 2020 reforms gave IN-SPACe. On 17 November 2022 the centre authorised the launch, which the PIB called the first private-sector launch of a launch vehicle from India. The PIB release counted it as the fourth authorisation IN-SPACe had issued to a non-government entity in six months, with more than 150 applications received by then.

Skyroot Aerospace, founded in June 2018 by Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, flew Vikram-S the next morning at 11:30, from ISRO’s sounding rocket complex at Sriharikota. ISRO classes Vikram-S as a suborbital vehicle. The PIB described it as a single-stage, solid-fuelled rocket that took about two years to develop, built with carbon composite structures and 3D-printed components. Three customer payloads, circuit-board instruments that measured acceleration and pressure, flew on board.

The two official accounts of the flight differ. ISRO’s Mission Prarambh page gives an altitude of about 89.5 kilometres and a flight time of 155 seconds. The Minister of State, speaking at Sriharikota the same day, gave a maximum altitude of 81.5 kilometres and an overall duration of about 300 seconds. The chairman of IN-SPACe said before the launch that he hoped Vikram-S “marks the start of a new age in India’s private space domain”.

Agnikul and the first private launch pad

At 7:15 a.m. on 30 May 2024, Agnikul Cosmos, a startup incubated at IIT Madras, launched Agnibaan SOrTeD, a sub-orbital technology demonstrator, from a pad the company established at Sriharikota and named Dhanush. The PIB release called it India’s first launch from a private pad and India’s first rocket launch powered by a semi-cryogenic engine, one printed in a single piece.

Per the release, the purpose was a test flight to gather flight data for Agnikul’s orbital vehicle, Agnibaan, which is designed for payloads of 30 to 300 kilograms. The chairmen of ISRO and IN-SPACe watched from Sriharikota. ISRO’s chairman said the flight’s firsts, including the 3D-printed semi-cryogenic engine, “demonstrate the prowess of indigenous design and innovation”. The release did not state an altitude.

Vikram-1 reaches orbit

Vikram-1 lifted off from Sriharikota at 12:05:30 p.m. on 18 July 2026, ISRO says. Via Satellite reports that Skyroot confirmed an orbit of 450 kilometres at 60 degrees inclination. ISRO says two satellites, Skyroot’s SCOPE and Grahaa Space’s, were injected into low Earth orbit, with the remaining payloads riding on the upper stage. IEEE Spectrum reports the flight took about 15 minutes to reach orbit and describes India as the third country, after China and the United States, with a domestic firm reaching orbit. It also calls Skyroot the first company to reach orbit on its first attempt.

ISRO’s page lists what the agency supplied. The first-stage solid motor was cast and static-tested at Sriharikota, and the second stage was validated at the same test facility. The upper stage’s liquid engine, Raman-I, was tested at the test facility of ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre. ISRO’s safety team monitored Skyroot’s operations at Sriharikota around the clock. IN-SPACe, ISRO says, gave Skyroot access to ISRO facilities, mission readiness reviews and launch clearances.

Vikram-1 is a 22-metre rocket with three solid-fuel stages and a final liquid stage, IEEE Spectrum reports, and the liquid stage’s 3D-printed engine can restart in space. The PIB gives its capacity as 350 kilograms to low Earth orbit. ISRO’s 2023 account of a Raman-II engine test at Mahendragiri lists a rated thrust of 1,460 newtons in vacuum and propellants of monomethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, and says Skyroot planned that engine for Vikram-1’s fourth stage. ISRO’s July 2026 page names Raman-I as the engine in the upper stage that flew.

On 23 August 2026, National Space Day, Skyroot said on X that stage 1 of its second Vikram-1 was on its way to Sriharikota, Business Today reports. No launch date was given.

Foreign money and the startup count

On 21 February 2024 the Union Cabinet amended the foreign direct investment rules for space. The PIB release sets three limits for the automatic route, which needs no government approval: up to 74 percent for satellite manufacturing and operation, satellite data products and the ground and user segments; up to 49 percent for launch vehicles and spaceports; and up to 100 percent for satellite components and sub-systems. Above those limits, investment needs government approval. A gazette notification dated 16 April 2024 put the change into the Foreign Exchange Management (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules, 2019, according to a March 2025 PIB reply.

The Department of Space’s figures for startups have risen with these changes, a field that also includes satellite makers such as those in India’s NewSpace startups. At the Vikram-S launch in November 2022, the Minister of State put the number of space startups at 102. The August 2026 parliamentary replies cite around 440 space technology startups registered on the DPIIT Start-up India Portal, and put cumulative investment in Indian space startups at about USD 618.5 million as of 31 March 2026. A PIB feature of 18 July 2026 says the figure grew from one startup in 2014 to over 400 in 2026.

The authorisation count has its own discrepancy. The 18 July feature says IN-SPACe had issued 133 authorisations as of June 2026, while the August replies say 113. The later parliamentary figure, 113, is the one used here.

Beyond permits, the August 2026 replies list a ₹1,000 crore venture capital fund, a ₹500 crore Technology Adoption Fund and 118 technology transfer agreements covering 83 ISRO technologies. They also say IN-SPACe is taking forward the planned transfer of PSLV and LVM3 technologies to private industry.

What the first flights have and have not shown

The PIB feature of 18 July 2026 puts the space economy at about USD 8.4 billion and projects USD 40 to 45 billion by 2030. IEEE Spectrum quotes the analyst Torsten Kriening of SpaceWatch.Global saying the failures of small launchers tend to come on flights two, three and four. It also reports that Skyroot has said Vikram-1 could start commercial operations in 2027, that its larger Vikram-2 is scheduled to fly first in 2027, and that Agnikul and other startups are building launch vehicles of their own.

The 12 August 2026 Lok Sabha reply says 18 startups hold IN-SPACe authorisations. Its annexure names 16, among them Skyroot, Agnikul, Pixxel, Digantara and Dhruva Space.