Skyroot Aerospace sold two dedicated launches to the US company Reflect Orbital on 14 October 2026, less than three months after Vikram-1 reached orbit

Skyroot Aerospace, the Hyderabad company whose Vikram-1 rocket reached orbit on 18 July 2026, has a launch order from the United States. Reflect Orbital, a US space startup, announced on 14 October 2026 that it had bought two dedicated launches from Skyroot. The first will fly on Vikram-1. The second will fly on Vikram-1U, an upgraded version that is still in development.

That puts a foreign commercial customer on the books less than three months after the rocket’s first flight. The companies have not published the price, the launch dates or which Reflect Orbital spacecraft will go up.

What the two companies announced

Via Satellite and Payload both date the announcement to 14 October. The release was reposted by idrw.org with a 15 October date and by Evertiq on 19 October, so the reprint dates differ from the announcement date.

The release says the launches give Reflect Orbital assured schedule and capacity, and that they add to launches the company plans from US sites. It also says the deal extends Skyroot’s commercial launch schedule across the Vikram family, according to Evertiq’s account. A dedicated launch is booked for one customer’s payload rather than shared among several.

Ben Nowack, Reflect Orbital’s co-founder and chief executive, gave the reason in plain terms: “There’s a real launch capacity shortage right now.” Pawan Kumar Chandana, Skyroot’s co-founder and chief executive, said “Reflect Orbital represents the kind of ambitious global space mission the Vikram family is being built to serve.”

New Space Economy’s analysis says a dedicated launch gives the operator more say over deployment and orbit than a seat on a shared flight. A company that has to place its mirrors in one specific orbit before it can sell anything has a use for that control.

Where Vikram-1 stands

Vikram-1 lifted off from Sriharikota at 12:05:30 pm IST on 18 July 2026. ISRO states that this “is the first time that a private Indian company has undertaken an orbital launch of a rocket from Indian soil.” Our report on that flight has the details, and the route a private rocket takes to get clearance is covered in our explainer on India’s space policy.

Skyroot’s website lists Vikram-1 at up to 350 kg to low Earth orbit and up to 260 kg to a sun-synchronous orbit, and offers both dedicated and rideshare launches. Via Satellite also gives 350 kg. Inc42 gives higher figures of 480 kg and 290 kg without naming a source, so this article uses the company’s own numbers.

On National Space Day, 23 August 2026, ISRO honoured the Skyroot team at the event in Ahmedabad. Its page counts more than 440 Indian space start-ups since the 2020 reforms, and our piece on India’s NewSpace start-ups covers the field Skyroot belongs to. The same day Skyroot posted that the first stage of its second Vikram-1 was on its way to Sriharikota. Business Today reported that the post gave no launch date, and none of the sources reviewed for this article has given one since.

The second rocket is still being built

Vikram-1U is the part of the deal that has not flown yet. The Reflect Orbital release describes it as having additional first-stage boosters and better performance. Skyroot’s website does not list it.

Two outlets give a date. Payload says the first Vikram-1U mission is expected in the first quarter of 2027, and Inc42 reported the same quarter, along with up to two more Vikram-1 launches this year before it. Neither attributes the date to a named Skyroot official, and the companies’ own release does not state it. Payload also gives a payload figure for Vikram-1U of about 550 kg. That figure is in no other source, so it is left out here.

Chandana told Inc42 in July that Skyroot was seeing “a lot of interest” from India, the United States, Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia, without naming customers.

Who Reflect Orbital is

Reflect Orbital is building satellites with large mirrors that redirect sunlight to chosen spots on Earth. Its website lists a lighting service and an energy service, with a plan that runs from two satellites in 2026 to more than 1,000 in 2028 and more than 50,000 in 2035. The Evertiq account names remote search-and-rescue operations and solar farms among possible customers.

Its first spacecraft, Earendil-1, was licensed by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on 9 July 2026. The FCC order covers one satellite and calls it a testbed for sunlight-reflecting technology. It sets a working orbit of 625 km, give or take 25 km, at an inclination of 88 degrees, and a licence term of two years from the date Reflect Orbital certifies the satellite is in orbit. Astronomy magazine and Universe Today give the unfolded mirror as 18 metres by 18 metres.

Whether Earendil-1 will fly on Skyroot’s rocket is not stated. The release speaks of “future spacecraft”, and Payload says the announcement does not name the payload.

The objections on the US side

The American Astronomical Society filed a petition to deny the licence, and Via Satellite reports that the application drew more than 2,000 comments. The FCC’s Space Bureau denied the petition in its 9 July order. The order says the FCC’s role is to authorise radio use, and it treated concerns about light pollution and optical astronomy as outside that role. It also said a future constellation would be reviewed on its own merits.

Two challenges to the licence were still pending in October, including an Application for Review filed by Earthjustice, according to Exterra JSC. In an order reported on 14 October, the Space Bureau also moved Reflect Orbital’s deadline for posting a surety bond, a financial guarantee, from 10 August to 5 January 2027. The order says the company plans to launch within several months of the grant.

Reflect Orbital’s site says it keeps exclusion zones for astronomy and sensitive environments. None of this involves Skyroot’s rocket or ISRO’s launch site directly, but it is the context in which the customer is operating.

What is still open, as of 29 October 2026

The price of the contract, the dates of both launches, the launch site for each and the identity of the first spacecraft are not public. The second Vikram-1 has no announced launch date. Vikram-1U has no flight date from Skyroot, and the only dates in circulation come from press reports of the first quarter of 2027.

The FCC order requires Earendil-1 to be launched and operated by 9 July 2032.