印度太空启动Skyroot航空航天has raised $51 million towards the development of its 3D printed cryogenic engine-powered rockets.
Skyroot Aerospace的Vikram发射车能够将多达815 kilos带入低地轨道（LEO），由Dhawan-1推动，Dhawan-1是一种从超级合金打印的发动机3D，以将其生产时间降低95％。通过新加坡投资者领导的回合获得了B系列支持GIC，该公司现在拥有现金来资助其初始发布测试，并建立自己的卫星发射服务。
Skyroot Aerospace首席执行官Pawan Kumar Chandana说：“这一轮通过资助我们所有最初的开发发射，使我们构成了超增长的轨迹，并使建筑基础设施能够满足我们卫星客户所需的高级发射节奏。”“我们的目标是将自己确立为一流的火箭发射服务的提供商，并且是负担得起且可靠的小型卫星发射的首选目的地。”
“We are proud to welcome one of the world’s leading institutional investors as a long-term partner in our mission to ‘Open Space for All’”
Democratizing space exploration
Skyroot航空航天was set up in 2018 with the aim of making Earth-to-space transportation less expensive. The company sees doing so as vital to broadening access to space exploration from just a handful of governments and firms to wider research groups, and through “pushing the boundaries of today’s technology,” it says it’s possible to “open space for all.”
Primarily, Skyroot Aerospace’s efforts to achieve this have revolved around its Vikram launch vehicles. Named after Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, founder of the Indian Space Program, the modular rockets are built specifically to cater for the satellite launch market.
该公司编号为Vikram I到III，该公司的火箭弹有能力向狮子座发射480-815公斤，这要归功于其全3D印刷的低温发动机。Skyroot Aerospace的推进系统于2020年末揭幕，因为它是由液态天然气冷冻螺旋剂助长的，据报道它完全由使用粉末床（PBF）的高强度碳纤维（PBF）创建。
Designed to propel the upper-stage of the firm’s rockets, the engine is said to be capable of multiple restarts, potentially enabling it to drop satellites into several orbits on a single mission. With Skyroot Aerospace estimating that 20,000 small satellites will be launched to LEO over the coming decade, it now aims to address this market itself via its own launch service, with the Vikram at the heart of it.
扩大商业发布会
Said to be the largest funding round of any Indian space firm to date, Skyroot Aerospace’s backing provides it with the cash needed to go from rocket testing to establishing commercial launch capabilities. The funding round’s main backer, GIC, doesn’t list its full portfolio in its reports, but it positions itself as an investor in tech firms, making it a useful long-term backer for a business still building its offering.
That said, Skyroot Aerospace continues to make progress in the R&D of its Vikram rockets, with the Vikram-I successfully passing third-stage testing in May 2022. During the test, which was carried out at the facilities of one of the company’s other investors,Solar Industries India据报道，发射车产生了100 kN的峰值真空推力，并达到了大约108秒的燃烧时间。
Skyroot Aerospace使用其新饲养的资本前进，除了扩大其工程团队和基础设施外，还希望能够完成初始的飞行测试，以准备明年推出其服务。
“We have validated all three propulsion technologies in our Vikram space launch vehicles, and completed a full duration test of one of our rocket stages in May ’22,” added Skyroot COO Naga Bharath Daka. “We are also planning a demonstrator launch to space this year. This round will help us get to full-fledged commercial satellite launch scale within a year from now. We have started booking payload slots for our upcoming launches.”
3D printing as a spaceflight enabler
低温火箭推进系统，即那些在寒冷温度下液化和储存的气体所吸引的火箭推进系统，在太空飞行的世界中并不新鲜。实际上，Pratt & Whitney’sRL10 was first flown in 1963, but it’s still the most-used upper-stage engine in the US, withAerojet Rocketdyne现在合同建造它。
正如您所期望的，随着59年前开发的引擎，其最新的制造保管人在设计上不断迭代，以改善其性能。直到2017年，该公司热火测试了3D打印的RL10推室，此后收到了订购116 Part-3D打印RL10C-X引擎from联合发射联盟。
Elsewhere in the 3D printing industry, the technology has also been deployed extensively in the creation of launch-ready rocket propulsion systems.Rocket Lab’s 3D printed Rutherford engine, for example, continues to be used to propel the Electron into LEO, a rocket that’s now completed 29 launches and fired 149 satellites into orbit.
最近，X弓系统已经测试了其螺栓火箭，作为一项任务的一部分，该任务携带了测试有效载荷洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室。螺栓由Ballesta 3D printed rocket engines，这是由具有柔性几何形状的推进剂晶粒所助长的，可以量身定制以满足应用特定的要求。
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Featured image shows a concept image of a Skyroot Aerospace Vikram rocket. Image via Skyroot Aerospace.
