# SSLV The Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) is [[India]]'s smallest orbital rocket, built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to win a share of the booming market for launching small satellites. It can put roughly 500 kg into a 500-kilometer orbit. The selling point is speed, not size: it was designed to be assembled quickly by a small team, so a customer can get a satellite up on short notice instead of waiting for a spare seat on a big rocket. The SSLV has three solid-fuel stages and a small liquid-fueled "velocity trimming module" on top that fine-tunes the final orbit. It is India's answer to vehicles like [[Rocket Lab]]'s Electron in the United States. ## Flight record | Flight | Date | Payload | Result | |---|---|---|---| | SSLV-D1 | 7 August 2022 | EOS-02, AzaadiSAT | Failure — a brief sensor glitch at second-stage separation put the rocket into a backup mode, and both satellites ended up in an orbit too low to survive | | SSLV-D2 | 10 February 2023 | EOS-07, Janus-1, AzaadiSAT-2 | Success | | SSLV-D3 | 16 August 2024 | EOS-08, SR-0 DEMOSAT | Success — completed the development program | AzaadiSAT, lost on the first flight, was a small satellite built by schoolgirls from across India. Its replacement flew successfully on the second. As of late October 2026, the public launch record shows no SSLV flight since August 2024. ## Handing a rocket to industry The SSLV's bigger story is who builds it next. In June 2025, the state-owned defense manufacturer Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) won the contract to take over the rocket, for ₹511 crore (roughly $60 million). The technology transfer agreement was signed on 10 September 2025 between HAL, ISRO, ISRO's commercial arm NewSpace India Limited, and the space regulator IN-SPACe. It was the first time ISRO handed an entire launch vehicle to an outside manufacturer. ISRO engineers will support HAL while it builds and flies its first two rockets, with that support capped at 24 months. A new spaceport at Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu is being built largely with small launchers like the SSLV in mind. India opened its space sector to private companies in 2020, and startups such as Skyroot Aerospace and Agnikul Cosmos are building their own small rockets. But the government's flagship small rocket went to a public-sector company, not a startup. "Privatizing" space in India has so far meant moving work from a state agency to a state-owned contractor, which is a narrower kind of opening than the word suggests. ## Why it's on the map The SSLV is a small rocket attached to a big argument. The American right frames the [[SpaceX]] era as proof that private companies out-innovate government agencies. India is testing a different model: a state agency designs the rocket, proves it works, and then hands the blueprints to industry to manufacture at scale. Whether HAL can turn ISRO's three development flights into a steady commercial cadence is a live experiment in how much of space can be industrialized without being privatized in the American sense. The answer will shape how the Global South thinks about building its own [[Space Economy]]. ## See also - [[GSLV]] — India's larger launcher for high orbits - [[India]] — the country - [[Rocket Lab]] — the U.S. small-launch comparison - [[Space Launch Infrastructure]] — launch as a strategic chokepoint - [[Space Economy]] — who pays for space, and the investment thesis - [[Space Hub]] — the parent hub