Indian rocket maker Agnikul gets patent for single-piece rocket engines

Chennai, Sep 7 Indian rocket maker Agnikul Cosmos has said it has secured the patent from the Indian government for its design and manufacturing of single-piece rocket engines.

Agnilet, one such single piece engine, is the world's first single-piece 3D printed rocket engine fully designed and manufactured in India, it was successfully test-fired in early 2021.

Agnikul had recently announced the inauguration of its Rocket Factory- 1, India's first-ever rocket facility dedicated to 3D print such rocket engines at scale situated at the IIT Madras Research Park.

Commenting on the patent, Srinath Ravichandran, Co-founder & CEO, Agnikul said: "Rocket engines usually have thousands of parts in them - starting from injectors that inject fuel into the engine, to the cooling channels that cool the engine, to the igniter that is necessary to ignite the propellants."

"Designing Agnilet as a single piece of hardware has not been an easy ride, but our team has proved it to be otherwise. This patent is a testament to the world-class designed-in-India and made-in-India deep-tech engineering that the Agnikul team is able to do," he added.

Agnikul has raised a total funding of Rs 105 crore ($15 million) from Mayfield India, pi Ventures, Speciale Invest, and a host of others, including prominent angels such as Anand Mahindra and Naval Ravikant since 2019.