AgniKul Co-Founder and CEO, Srinath Ravichandran, sits down with Balerion Senior Associate, Aidan Daoussis, to discuss the rise of 3D-printed small launch vehicles and India’s new private space age.
* 00:00 – 01:30 — Welcome & introduction.Aidan opens the webinar, introduces Agnikul as an Indian space tech company building highly configurable small-lift rockets with a single-piece 3D-printed engine and its own private launch pad, and frames India’s growing importance in global space launch.
* 01:30 – 03:20 — What Agnikul does & why another small rocket.Srinath introduces himself and Agnikul: a small launch company taking up to ~500 kg to orbit. He explains why “another small rocket” is needed and why simply shrinking big rockets doesn’t work economically.
* 03:20 – 07:30 — India’s policy shift & opening to private space.Srinath walks through India’s legacy in space (large vehicles, deep space missions, 104-satellite launch) and the post-COVID policy shift that opened the sector to private missions across launch, satellites, and ground stations, including the creation of InSpace as the national regulator.
* 07:30 – 13:10 — Economics of small rockets & the 3D-printed single-piece engine.He explains why small rockets struggle with economies of scale, why new tech is required to make them affordable, and how Agnikul focused on unit economics and “transport variables” (price, wait time, geography). This leads into their decision to develop a fully 3D-printed, single-piece engine, iterating through dozens of designs to print everything—from inlets to nozzle—in one shot, reducing cost, time, and human error.
* 13:10 – 16:30 — From mobile launch pad concept to first private pad at Sriharikota.Srinath describes why they chose to build their own mobile launch pad: avoiding payload penalties from flying around Sri Lanka for polar orbits and unlocking geographic flexibility. He shows how they assembled and qualified a pad near Chennai, then disassembled, moved, and re-assembled it at the national spaceport, including a mobile mission control in a converted cargo container.
* 16:30 – 21:30 — Regulatory collaboration, semi-cryo firsts & syncing with the range.He explains how ISRO and InSpace enabled this first private launchpad, why India’s first semi-cryogenic flight excited agency engineers, and some of the technical challenges such as synchronizing clocks with the government range for countdown and telemetry.
* 21:30 – 24:30 — What global investors often get wrong about India & Agnikul.Srinath shares common investor concerns: friction around investing and exiting capital from India, and skepticism about how quickly an Indian private launcher can prove itself as a world-class brand despite ISRO’s strong track record.
* 24:30 – 27:30 — Where the money goes: infrastructure, testing rigs & IIT Madras.He breaks down how tens of millions raised have been deployed: heavily into precision engine-test infrastructure and stage testing rigs that must outperform the engines themselves, while leveraging existing manufacturing vendors and the IIT Madras ecosystem for labs, compute, and talent.
* 27:30 – 30:30 — Customer journey & value proposition vs rideshare.Srinath walks through the ideal customer experience: satellite operators only specify payload mass and target orbit, while Agnikul optimizes launch site, vehicle configuration, and drop-off conditions. He describes flat $/kg pricing, end-to-end service for small satellites, and cutting intermediaries compared to large-rocket rideshare.
* 30:30 – 34:10 — Why there’s still room for new small launchers.He argues that despite SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and Chinese players, the market still lacks truly nimble, efficient small rockets. Srinath sketches a future with a few large rockets plus 3–5 small launchers flying 80–100 times per year, and positions Agnikul as chasing that gap.
* 34:10 – 39:30 — Cracking 3D printing & building the team.Srinath explains why Agnikul succeeded with 3D-printed engines where others struggled: operating at the intersection of academia, industry, and retired ISRO experts; using proven alloys and printer processes instead of inventing new metallurgy; and carefully choosing where 3D printing actually adds value. He then describes their ~300-person team across three facilities, with a very young core (average age ~27–28) “sandwiched” with experienced retired ISRO engineers.
* 39:30 – 43:30 — Print times, safety culture & smart testing programs.He shares print durations (roughly 4–8 days per engine depending on layer thickness) and discusses balancing “move fast” iteration with India’s low tolerance for visible failure. Srinath emphasizes investing heavily in smart test programs so most learning happens on the ground, not in flight, and recounts how pre-launch aborts triggered tough questions despite being the right outcome.
* 43:30 – 48:10 — Inside the first suborbital launch: security, isolation & two mission controls.Srinath paints a picture of launch day at Sriharikota: strict security, no phones, long drives just to make calls, and two separate mission control rooms—one inside Agnikul’s container close to the pad and one embedded with ISRO. He jokes about realizing only afterward that he never actually heard his own rocket launch live.
* 48:10 – 53:00 — Reusability, upper-stage “satellite bus” & scaling to 100 launches.Looking ahead, Srinath describes Agnikul’s next mission: putting a customer payload into orbit while testing a concept where the upper stage stays in orbit as a functional satellite bus, and separately experimenting with booster recovery via barge landing. He outlines a path to ~100 launches per year through in-house production of ~25–30 lower stages and ~100 upper stages, supported by new facilities near India’s upcoming second launch complex (SLC) on the southern coast.
* 53:00 – 55:30 — The next 2–30 years of India’s space economy.Srinath shares his view of India’s space future: rapid growth across satellites, launch, ground segment, and data services; a push to grow from ~2–3% of global space revenue to a “meaningful share”; and an ambitious government roadmap including human spaceflight, a national space station, and deep-space missions that will increasingly involve commercial players.
* 55:30 – 56:39 — Closing thoughts & invitation to future launches.Aidan thanks Srinath for the conversation and enthusiasm around Agnikul’s upcoming launches. Srinath invites listeners to come to India for future missions, and Aidan encourages the audience to follow future Balerion webinars and suggest topics.
