Sehore : VIT Bhopal University’s student-led rocketry team, Team
Agnipaksha, has achieved a significant international milestone by
successfully conducting two hot firings of its indigenously developed hybrid
rocket engine at the 2026 Race2Space International Propulsion
Competition in the United Kingdom. The team secured the 8th position
globally among hybrid propulsion teams, marking a major achievement for VIT
Bhopal University and India’s growing student-led space and propulsion
ecosystem.
The fourth edition of
Race2Space, one of the world's prominent university-level rocket propulsion
competitions, was organised by the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, and
hosted at the Westcott Space Cluster, Westcott Venture Park, Buckinghamshire.
Supported by the UK Space Agency and Buckinghamshire, the 2026 edition brought
together 75 teams comprising approximately 530 students from over 22 countries,
including the USA, Mexico, Australia, France, the Netherlands and South Korea.
Competing in the highly
challenging Hybrid Rocket Engine category, which featured 49 teams, Team
Agnipaksha successfully demonstrated the performance and reliability of its
propulsion system during the competition's on-site testing and symposium
window.
Race2Space challenges
university teams to design, manufacture and test their own rocket engines,
demonstrating engineering capability, safety readiness and technical
performance before industry experts.
Reaching the hot-fire stage
is itself a significant technical and safety milestone, as engines must clear
rigorous design, structural and facility safety requirements before ignition.
The Race2Space organisers recognised Team Agnipaksha for successfully completing
two hot firings of its hybrid rocket engine.
The achievement was powered
by Project HyPE, a 7 kN-class hybrid rocket engine developed by approximately
40 students from diverse disciplines, including Aerospace, Mechanical,
Electrical and Computer Science. Founded in July 2025, Team Agnipaksha has rapidly
progressed from developing smaller propulsion systems to successfully
demonstrating an advanced hybrid rocket engine at an international professional
testing facility.
Prof. Satish Kumar Modh,
Vice-Chancellor, VIT Bhopal University, said, “Team Agnipaksha’s successful international campaign and its
world rank of 8th among hybrid rocket teams represent an important milestone
for VIT Bhopal University. This achievement
reflects our commitment to innovation, advanced research and student-led
technological development, while enabling our students to showcase their
capabilities on a global platform.”
Commenting on the
achievement, Dr. Prashant Gopalakrishnan, Faculty Advisor, Sr. Assistant Professor and Programme Chair, Aerospace Engineering at VIT Bhopal, said, “Two clean
hot fires is a serious result. What got the team there was not the boldest
design on paper, but the discipline to simplify, to choose what they could
validate in the time they had, and to be honest about what they could
manufacture. VIT Bhopal University provided the
team with an enabling environment to translate its ambition into a successful
outcome and demonstrate its capabilities on an international platform.”
The design underwent
extensive engineering validation, including finite element analysis and a
staged qualification programme involving cold-flow testing, proof-pressure
testing and static-fire testing, before the team travelled to the United
Kingdom for the international competition.
Team Agnipaksha's earlier
achievement included the successful static firing of an L-class solid rocket
motor that reached a peak thrust of 1,500 N. Project HyPE represents a
significant leap in the team's technical journey, marking an order-of-magnitude
increase in propulsion scale and its transition from solid to hybrid rocket
propulsion.
Shreyas Hiregoudar, Team
Captain, Team Agnipaksha,
said, “We built this (rocket engine) with what we had, when there were
plenty of reasons to stop. Seeing it fire twice, at a professional facility,
alongside teams from around the world, was worth each one of those late
nights.”
The achievement marks an important milestone for
VIT Bhopal University’s continued focus on innovation, hands-on research and
advanced technological development across disciplines, including the aerospace
sector.