the Hyderabad company<\/a> released a film explaining it.<\/p>\nReaching space is the easy part. Arriving at exactly the right address is the hard one. A satellite released even a few metres per second too fast sails past its orbit. Released too slow, it falls back and dies. The OAM exists so that neither happens.<\/p>\n
AN ENGINE THAT CAN STOP AND START AGAIN<\/p>\n
The lower stages of Vikram-1 burn solid fuel, rather like a firework. Once lit, they cannot be paused or relit. The OAM does the opposite.<\/p>\n
It is powered by a liquid engine called Raman-2, named after the Indian Nobel laureate CV Raman. A liquid engine can be throttled, its fuel flow turned up, turned down, or shut off entirely.<\/p>\n
That single ability changes everything. In the vacuum of space, the Raman-2 engine can fire, fall silent, and fire again, as many times as a mission demands.<\/p>\n
Each restart lets the stage shift the rocket into a fresh orbit, which is how one launch can drop several satellites at several addresses, a service the industry cheerfully calls a space taxi.<\/p>\n
The Raman-2 liquid engine, named after physicist CV Raman, can fire, shut down and restart in the vacuum of space. (Photo: Skyroot)\n<\/p>\n
The engine is also 3D-printed and regeneratively cooled, a neat trick in which the cold fuel circulates around the engine walls before it burns, carrying away heat that would otherwise melt the metal.<\/p>\n
The propellant doubles as its own coolant.<\/p>\n
THE STEERING IS DONE BY WHISPERS<\/p>\n
A main engine alone cannot aim with the delicacy orbit demands. So the OAM carries a small orchestra of helpers, four Raman Mini thrusters and eight cold gas thrusters.<\/p>\n
Cold gas thrusters are the simplest rocket devices ever made, with no flame at all. They release a measured puff of pressurised gas, the same principle as releasing an inflated balloon, to turn the stage a fraction of a degree.<\/p>\n
Skyroot engineers monitor the Orbit Adjustment Module during ground testing, which ran for more than 1,000 thruster pulses. (Photo: Skyroot)\n<\/p>\n
They are precious precisely because nothing burns, so almost nothing can fail.<\/p>\n
Together these systems control pitch and yaw, the up-and-down and side-to-side tilt of the stage, nudging the path until the orbit is not roughly right but exactly right.<\/p>\n
A QUIET MILESTONE BEFORE A LOUD ONE<\/p>\n
In October 2025, Skyroot fired the whole module on the ground through more than 1,000 thruster pulses, every engine and thruster firing under conditions built to mimic flight.<\/p>\n
The timing matters. In May 2026, Skyroot became India’s first space-tech unicorn, valued at $1.1 billion, and its Vikram-1 rocket is already waiting at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota to become the first privately built Indian rocket to reach orbit.<\/p>\n
Four Raman Mini thrusters and eight cold gas thrusters fine-tune the stage’s tilt to lock onto the exact orbit. (Photo: Skyroot)\n<\/p>\n
When it flies, the fire will draw the eye.<\/p>\n
But it is this quiet, thinking final stage that will decide whether the mission succeeds.<\/p>\n
– Ends<\/p>\n
Published By: <\/p>\n
Radifah Kabir<\/p>\n
Published On: <\/p>\n
Jun 21, 2026 22:28 IST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rocket leaving Earth is mostly violence. The first three stages of Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 are built for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[234814,234799,18,234811,19,234806,234807,234812,234801,205934,17,234804,234813,234803,234796,234816,234798,234797,234815,234805,133,111778,234808,451,234802,92505,234800,234795,234809,234810],"class_list":["post-547569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-3d-printed-rocket-engine","tag-cold-gas-thrusters","tag-eire","tag-how-does-vikram-1-work","tag-ie","tag-india-first-private-rocket","tag-india-private-space","tag-india-space-taxi","tag-indian-private-rocket","tag-indian-space-startup","tag-ireland","tag-liquid-propulsion","tag-multi-satellite-deployment","tag-oam","tag-orbit-adjustment-module","tag-pawan-kumar-chandana","tag-raman-mini-thrusters","tag-raman-2-engine","tag-regenerative-cooling","tag-restartable-rocket-engine","tag-science","tag-skyroot-aerospace","tag-skyroot-unicorn","tag-space","tag-space-tech-unicorn","tag-sriharikota","tag-sriharikota-launch","tag-vikram-1","tag-vikram-1-launch-date","tag-what-is-orbit-adjustment-module"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}