Chennai-headquartered space technology start-up Agnikul Cosmos on Wednesday said the Government of India has awarded it the patent for the design and manufacturing of single-piece rocket engines.
Agnilet, one such single piece engine, is the world's first single-piece 3D printed rocket engine fully designed and manufactured in India. It was successfully test-fired in early 2021. Agnilet has been designed in such a manner to encapsulate all of these into just one piece of hardware and has zero assembled parts. Agnikul showcased this engine at IAC 2021, Dubai, which is the most prestigious space tech gathering in the world.
Srinath Ravichandran, Co-founder and CEO, Agnikul, said: “Rocket engines usually have thousands of parts in them. Designing Agnilet as a single piece of hardware has not been an easy ride, but our team has done it. The patent is a testament to the world-class designed-in-India and made-in-India deep tech engineering,” he said.
Founded in 2017 by Srinath Ravichandran, Moin S.P.M. and S.R. Chakravarthy, a professor in IIT Madras, Agnikul is on a mission to make space accessible and affordable. Incubated at IIT Madras, the start-up became the first Indian entity to sign an agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation in December 2020 under the IN-SPACe initiative. The pact helps Agnikul access ISRO's expertise and facilities to test its systems.
Till date, Agnikul has raised ₹105 crore ($15 million) from Mayfield India, pi Ventures, Speciale Invest, and a host of others, including prominent angel investors such as Anand Mahindra and Naval Ravikant since 2019.
