Sehore, September 17, 2026: 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.
