Why in News?

• India’s first-ever launchpad for a private launch vehicle has been established at Sriharikota.

 Highlights:

• Agnikul, which is a Chennai-headquartered space tech start-up, has established India’s first-ever launchpad operated by a private player at Sriharikota.
• The new facility was designed by Agnikul and was executed with the support of ISRO and the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-SPACe).
• The new facility consists of two sections namely the Agnikul launchpad (ALP) and the Agnikul Mission Control Centre (AMCC).
• The launchpad is designed keeping in mind the requirements to support liquid stage controlled launches and also the need for ISRO’s range operations team to monitor key flight safety parameters during launches. 
• Further, the facility has the ability to share crucial information with ISRO’s Mission Control Centre.

Other initiatives of Agnikul:

• Agnibaan is the company’s highly customisable, two-stage launch vehicle which is capable of carrying a 100 kg payload to Low Earth Orbits (LEO) of around 700 km and enables plug-and-play configuration.
• Agnilet is the world’s first single-piece 3-D printed engine fully designed and manufactured in India. Agnilet successfully test-fired in 2021 which made Agnikul the first company in India to test its engines at ISRO.