Space co Agnikul successfully tests 3D printed “Agnite” booster engine

New Delhi: Indian aerospace company Agnikul Cosmos on Wednesday announced that it has successfully tested its 3D printed booster engine ‘Agnite’, which can reduce production complexity and shorten mission turnaround time.The engine uses a unibody architecture and can be completely printed in a week, whereas traditional booster engines are made up of thousands of parts and take months to build.“I am honored to announce the successful ignition of our single-piece Agnite engine. The Agnite engine powers the booster stage of Agnibaan. These engine chambers are one meter long, fully 3D printed as one piece of hardware, and made of Inconel. The Agnite engine is powered by a pump controlled and operated by an electric motor. Thanks to Isro and INSPACE for their continued support, and IIT Madras for being our home for building such technology,” Agnikul posted on X on Wednesday.The company said this milestone is significant as it brings the end-to-end cycle of designing, manufacturing, assembling and testing our large engines in-house. With the successful testing of Agnite, the company will now focus on producing more such engines by setting up production lines.