New Delhi: In a major boost to aerospace technology in private sector, Hyderabad-based company Skyroot Aerospace  announced that it has successfully tested India’s first privately built fully cryogenic engine ‘Dhawan-1’.

The engine, which has been named in honour of eminent Indian Rocket scientist Dr Satish Dhawan, uses Liquid Natural Gas (more than 90 per cent Methane) and Liquid Oxygen cryogenic propellants, which are high performance, low-cost and green.

The company said the engine has a vacuum thrust of around 1.5 kilo newton (k)N and demonstrates upper stage technology of the firm’s orbital vehicle Vikram-2. The mobile test stand was indigenously developed by Skyroot and test firing was conducted in one of its kind facility of Solar Industries at Nagpur.

The cryogenic engines are highly efficient rocket propulsion systems that use propellants at cryogenic temperatures (less than minus 150 degree Celsius).

Skyroot Aerospace started India’s first private project to develop a small fully cryogenic engine with fabrication of a prototype engine to be used as a technology demonstrator in September 2020.