Success Story
Skyroot Aerospace
Founded in 2018 by former ISRO engineers Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, Skyroot Aerospace is a Hyderabad-based private launch company building a family of on-demand launch vehicles for the small-satellite market. Skyroot Aerospace made history in November 2022 when its Vikram-S suborbital rocket became the first privately developed Indian rocket to reach space. In July 2026, the company reached an even bigger milestone: Vikram-1, Skyroot Aerospace’s orbital-class launch vehicle, successfully placed multiple payloads into low Earth orbit on its very first flight, Mission Aagaman.
Skyroot Aerospace's Challenge
As Skyroot Aerospace progressed from its 2022 suborbital demonstrator toward a fully orbital rocket, its payload dispenser designs needed compact Hold-Down and Release Mechanisms (HDRMs) with extreme reliability.
Just as importantly, they needed to be resettable and easy to integrate, so Skyroot Aerospace engineers could run repeated deployment tests across multiple qualification campaigns without swapping hardware between cycles.
Image credit: Skyroot Aerospace
Dcubed Solution
Skyroot Aerospace selected Dcubed’s Nano and Micro Pin Pullers as the HDRMs for its CubeSat dispensers. The 44% smaller compact form factor and 34% lower mass of both actuators made them well suited to dispenser designs where space and payload margin are always at a premium. At the same time, their resettable, non-pyrotechnic actuation let the Skyroot Aerospace team repeatedly test and reset dispenser hardware during ground qualification, without the cost and complexity of consumable release mechanisms. Since 2022, Dcubed has consistently delivered on requirements and supported Skyroot Aerospace’s increasingly complex flight and testing program as the company has scaled toward Vikram-1. In that time, Skyroot Aerospace has ordered more than 20 actuators across its programs, including the Nano and Micro Pin Pullers for CubeSat dispensers flown on Vikram-1’s historic orbital debut.
Dcubed Impact
On July 18, 2026, Vikram-1 lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota and successfully reached a target orbit — making India the third country with private orbital launch capability and putting Skyroot Aerospace in the small group of private companies worldwide to reach orbit on their very first attempt. Dcubed’s Nano and Micro Pin Pullers performed flawlessly within Skyroot Aerospace’s CubeSat dispensers throughout the mission, supporting the deployment of payloads including the company’s own SCOPE technology demonstrator.
Beyond the technical performance on launch day, Mission Aagaman is the product of a four-year partnership between the two companies. The ease of integrating Dcubed’s resettable HDRMs let Skyroot Aerospace’s engineers test and iterate 23% faster compared to non-resettable HDRMs. At the same time the track record built across more than 20 units ordered since 2022 gave Skyroot Aerospace the confidence to rely on the same actuator family for a debut flight where failure was not an option. The success of Vikram-1 reinforces Dcubed’s role as a long-term hardware partner for Skyroot Aerospace.
Image credit: Skyroot Aerospace
With Vikram-1’s success now established, both companies see the mission as a foundation rather than a finish line. As Skyroot Aerospace scales toward second flight of Vikram-1 and a busier flight schedule, Mission Aagaman adds further confirmation that Dcubed’s flight proven actuators are well suited to support that growth — extending a four-year relationship into the next phase of India’s commercial launch industry.
