Agnibaan SOrTeD rocket launch postponed again

Chennai-based space start-up Agnikul Cosmos called off the maiden launch of its 3D-printed, semi-cryogenic Agnibaan rocket about 129 seconds before lift-off citing communication in the onboard hardware.

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April 7 was the third attempt at the test launch of the Agnibaan Sub-Orbital Technology Demonstrator (SOrTeD) since March 22, when the test flight was first scheduled to be held at the Agnikul Launch Pad at ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.

The second attempt at the test launch a day earlier also could not fructify."Had to call off today's launch attempt of Agnibaan SOrTeD just a second into Automated Launch Sequence (ALS) initiation (at T-129 seconds) because of a communication issue between two of our onboard hardware," the Chennai-based start-up said.

"Although it is frustrating to see a HOLD this close to lift off, we are glad that our ALS did its job. We will get to the root cause and come back for launch after fixing the cause," Agnikul said on X.