This aerospace engineer plans to launch satellites at a fourth of the cost

Using additive manufacturing, Srinath Ravichandran's firm Agnikul Cosmos is planning to build launch vehicles capable of hurling satellite into lower orbit

Srinath Ravichandran had plenty of reason to be thrilled on Monday. After all, his team, which is working in the niche and difficult aree of space technology, attracted the attention of none other than the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.

As the Prime Minister was visiting the stalls that set up at the IIT Research park in Chennai as part of the Singapore-India Hackathon event, he briefly halted at the one laid by Agnikul, a start-up that is looking at building cost-effective launch vehicles for low-orbit space missions.

"...I got to talk about Agnikul Cosmos and its 3D printed