New Delhi: Agnikul Cosmos was present along with NeevCloud at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in Pragati Maidan, along with NeevCloud. Agnikul and NeevCloud have
recently announced a partnership to launch an orbital data centre for AI inferencing, starting with one mission by the end of the year, scaling up to over 600 edge nodes in three years. However, before this flight, Agnikul will also be demonstrating the brand new architecture revealed at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Sydney, Australia in September 2025. While Agnikul was initially planning its Agnibaan as an expendable rocket, it pivoted to recovering the first stage booster and converting the upper stage to a satellite, ensuring no part of the rocket is wasted.
Agnikul Mission 02 Profile. (Image Credit: Agnikul/Aditya Madanapalle).
Agnikul has previously demonstrated its 3D printed Agnibaan launch vehicle with a suborbital test flight on 20 May 2024. For the Flight 02 mission, Agnikul plans to launch the rocket from a mobile launcher. The launch pad is essentially on the back of a trailer truck, providing Agnikul with the flexibility of launching from anywhere. This is a two stage to orbit launch vehicle, with the booster or first stage executing a sweep manoeuvre, deploying its grid fins for stabilising the flight, execute a landing burn to shed velocity, deploy the landing legs and land on an ocean platform.
Upper stage will turn into a satellite
On separating from the booster stage, the upper stage will shed the nose cone or payload fairing, that only needs to protect the payload from the friction of the lower atmosphere. The upper stage will deploy a payload, with the avionics module itself turning into a satellite. This is a unique approach for small launch vehicles. Flight 02 is planned for 2026. Agnikul may also have slotted in flights for customers before the launch of the first collaborative mission with Neevcloud by the end of the year.
