India's first privately-developed orbital rocket, Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1, reached orbit on its debut launch Saturday from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island. The 72-foot (22-meter) solid-fueled rocket lifted off at 1:35 am EDT after a brief delay, placing payloads into a 280-mile (450-kilometer) orbit at 60-degree inclination. Pawan Kumar Chandana, Skyroot's cofounder and CEO, called it "one of the biggest milestones ever in India's space sector."

The achievement is rare—SpaceX's Falcon 1 required four attempts to reach orbit in 2008, and Rocket Lab's Electron failed on its first try in 2017. Skyroot's initial goal was merely to clear the launch tower, but the Vikram-1 exceeded expectations, deploying two CubeSats and hosting additional payloads. V. Narayanan, ISRO chairman, and Pawan Goenka, IN-SPACe chairman, praised the "grand success."

Skyroot, valued at $1.1 billion with $160 million raised and over 1,000 employees (average age 28) in Hyderabad, plans Vikram-1U and Vikram-2 variants for heavier payloads. The launch aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push to increase India's annual launches from five to 50 by decade's end.