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India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

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Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#91

Post by OneDonOne »

alephnerd wrote: post #48
mayama wrote: post #46

Regarding Indian private space sector, In addition to skyroot solid rocket, following are noteworthy Agnikul is planning to launch semi-cryo kerosene rocket pretty soon. Their engine is 3d printed and use electric pump fed 25kN small engine. Planning to launch 4 clustered engines as first stage and already did suborbital test, with some parachute splash down reusability claims. Astrobase is recent entrant. With decen…

Also, Pixxel, Skyroot, and Agnikul are targeting orbital data center launches this year for defense applications (which is what the entire ODC story is about). The US NRO already uses India's Pixxel [0] along with Finland's ICEYE (which is now co-manufacturing synthetic aperture sats in India with Agnikul [1]) for hyperspectral scanning. Edit: can't reply > But.. why? Missile Defense and C4ISR [2]. Seconds matter, so…

This borders on science fiction. 88,000-and 1-million satellite clusters (as claimed in your link) are hard to take seriously, especially with the possibility of Kessler Syndrome. Also:

1. How do you cool your chips? Vacuum is a thermal insulator, so radiators are required to remove heat. nVidia (or even ASICs) require much and specialised cooling.

2. How does one radiation harden a H100?

3. I'm also seeing where TCO for these are 78x their terrestrial equivalents [0]. Is that financial sustainable?

And there still remain issues with power supply, regulations, and bandwidth. This feels more like a thought experiment rather than an actual serious engineering or business case.

[0] https://www.abiresearch.com/blog/data-centers-in-space

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#92

Post by MobiusHorizons »

numpad0 wrote: post #55
londons_explore wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you need at least a little thrust ~40 mins later to circularize the orbit? Obviously solid rockets can't be relit. Could that be the use of the 4th stage?

Rockets are usually two-staged + satellites. The booster take it to outside of the atmosphere, then the upper stage puts it into a ballistic trajectory, and the payload does the circularization burn 45 minutes or so after the liftoff at the peak of the parabola. Above is the basic semantics, and it can be further optimized, such as by extending battery power for the second stage to use it for circularization, inserti…

> Rockets are usually two-staged + satellites.

I think that only applies to liquid fueled rockets. At a minimum the Scout family of rockets (USA) and the Lambda 4s (Japan) both use 4 stages. That is what I was trying to say above. The sibling comment also points out that you at least need a third stage to circularize the orbit, since you can't re-light solid rocket motors. I'm not exactly clear on why its 4 and not 3, but that seems to be the standard with solid fueled rockets.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#93

Post by GMoromisato »

villgax wrote: post #89
zbentley wrote: post #10

And with $160MM in funding at a $1.1B valuation? I don't know about their debt, but to get to LEO in 8 years on that little money is extremely impressive.

you can imagine if they bother cracking landing back to re-use, it's KO for spacex

I can't tell if this is sarcasm, trolling, or delusion, so congrats, I guess.

SpaceX might fail for any number of reasons in the next ten years, but I would bet a lot of money that it won't be because they got outcompeted by Skyroot.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#94

Post by detritus »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #82
detritus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mein Gott, you're not just making this up ( https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/neevcloud-and-agn... ). But.. why? Musk bandwagon-hopping? Investor bamboozlery? (Same diff?) Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? - ed, disclosure: You seem to have edited your response whilst I…

> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? Don't worry, most of the people online didn't get the memo on this. One of the major selling points of orbital compute is power supply - more specifically, it turns out that, compared to beaming power from space, it's projected to be cheaper t…

My concern is more in the realms of cooling. I know there's the potential for lots of 'free' energy up there, but how do you then ensure your space-based array of GPU farms bleed all of the resultant heat?

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#95

Post by OneDonOne »

rayiner wrote: post #83
detritus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mein Gott, you're not just making this up ( https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/neevcloud-and-agn... ). But.. why? Musk bandwagon-hopping? Investor bamboozlery? (Same diff?) Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? - ed, disclosure: You seem to have edited your response whilst I…

> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? In the real world, "physics" is not necessarily the gating factor. There is a major concern about the environmental footprint of terrestrial data centers, to the point where major U.S. states are enacting moratoriums: https://www.governor.ny.g…

If the "physics" tells you that your satellite cannot radiate heat away from your nVidia GPU cluster because each H100 needs 1.1 meter square of radiator, then opinions do not matter. The same applies to power supply and bandwidth.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#96

Post by lightedman »

onethought wrote: post #75
walrus01 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rocket Lab is a US company, they would not have been able to build what they did without full ITAR and MTCR compliance.

Maybe you need to let them know. They were founded in NZ by a NZer, they launch from NZ, their employees are NZers. Calling them a US company is equivalent to saying Google is Irish.

RL incorporated in the USA to gain launch licenses.

They've been an American company for over a decade at this point.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#97

Post by alephnerd »

OneDonOne wrote: post #91
alephnerd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, Pixxel, Skyroot, and Agnikul are targeting orbital data center launches this year for defense applications (which is what the entire ODC story is about). The US NRO already uses India's Pixxel [0] along with Finland's ICEYE (which is now co-manufacturing synthetic aperture sats in India with Agnikul [1]) for hyperspectral scanning. Edit: can't reply > But.. why? Missile Defense and C4ISR [2]. Seconds matter, so…

This borders on science fiction. 88,000-and 1-million satellite clusters (as claimed in your link) are hard to take seriously, especially with the possibility of Kessler Syndrome. Also: 1. How do you cool your chips? Vacuum is a thermal insulator, so radiators are required to remove heat. nVidia (or even ASICs) require much and specialised cooling. 2. How does one radiation harden a H100? 3. I'm also seeing where TCO…

The projections are questionable, but this is something the US and China are experimenting with as well.

1 and 2 are still open questions, but these are not aimed to be commercial grade DCs - this is basically edge compute (think a handful of racks). 3 is not a problem for defense usecases. (EDIT: Discussion here seems to point out that data OP is using might be flawed [1]).

Ignoring the fact that just about every orbital data center startup in the US is funded by IQT and China's CMF has been doing something similar is bad from a defense perspective.

Based on dealflow, these aren't being targeted for consumer usecases in the short-term and whoever has been saying that is misleading.

> especially with the possibility of Kessler Syndrome...

India, Russia, China, and the US don't care about Kessler Syndrome - they have already launched and deployed ASATs. This also comes after India and China had a near collision in 2024 that was treated as an offensive action [0].

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-22/india-pla...

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49039873

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#98

Post by alephnerd »

detritus wrote: post #94
TeMPOraL wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? Don't worry, most of the people online didn't get the memo on this. One of the major selling points of orbital compute is power supply - more specifically, it turns out that, compared to beaming power from space, it's projected to be cheaper t…

My concern is more in the realms of cooling. I know there's the potential for lots of 'free' energy up there, but how do you then ensure your space-based array of GPU farms bleed all of the resultant heat?

From a Defense perspective, it's acceptable if multiple ODC fails and you have to re-launch another one. This is why these are being treated as part of a mesh. These aren't supposed to be a commercial DC and are intended to be a mesh of multiple racks in orbit.

The fact that the US, China, Russia, and India have already deployed ASATs means a Kessler effect if a question of when and not if.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#99

Post by pfdietz »

OneDonOne wrote: post #95
rayiner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? In the real world, "physics" is not necessarily the gating factor. There is a major concern about the environmental footprint of terrestrial data centers, to the point where major U.S. states are enacting moratoriums: https://www.governor.ny.g…

If the "physics" tells you that your satellite cannot radiate heat away from your nVidia GPU cluster because each H100 needs 1.1 meter square of radiator, then opinions do not matter. The same applies to power supply and bandwidth.

What are the assumptions behind that 1.1 m^2 figure?

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#100

Post by alephnerd »

pfdietz wrote: post #99
OneDonOne wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the "physics" tells you that your satellite cannot radiate heat away from your nVidia GPU cluster because each H100 needs 1.1 meter square of radiator, then opinions do not matter. The same applies to power supply and bandwidth.

What are the assumptions behind that 1.1 m^2 figure?

OP is quoting Mikhail Klassen at Planet Labs [0].

The cost of replacement is exorbitant for commercial usecases, but is acceptable for defense usecases.

The issue is too many people are looking at the commercial usecase while ignoring the defense usecase that is what is actually driving the conversation and dealflow in this segment.

[0] - https://www.mikhailklassen.com/posts/orbital-data-centers/or...

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