Hyderabad-based startup Skyroot Aerospace became the first Indian private company to build a homegrown rocket engine by successfully testing an upper-stage rocket engine that is the third and fourth stage of a traditional multi-stage rocket, fired at high altitude and designed to operate with little or no atmospheric pressure.

The engine was named Raman, after the Nobel Prize winner CV Raman and has fewer parts and weighs lesser than a conventional rocket engine.

The private space launch industry has been boosted since the launch and success of SpaceX. However, markets like India are just now getting the much needed regulatory support to pave the way for private industries to participate.

In a tweet, the company announced, “No better day than Dr. Vikram Sarabhai’s birthday to announce successful test firing our Vikram-1 launch vehicle upper state engine Raman. Four engines with multi-start capability produce a thrust of 3.4kN and insert multiple satellites into orbit.”

Founded two years ago, Skyroot has a team that includes rocket engineers with previous working experience at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), including CEO and co-founder Pawan Kumar Chandana and co-founder Naga Bharath Daka. The startup has raised $4.3 million to date that includes from space and defense contractor Solar Industries. It is currently going through the funding process again in hopes of securing another $15 million by 2021.

Skyroot is currently focused on developing its very first launch vehicle, the “Vikram-I,” which is in the process of being manufactured and is on track for its first launch sometime around December 2021. Test fires of two full stages of its rocket are under development for Skyroot, over the course of the next six months and the company is also concurrently already at work on Vikram-2 and Vikram-3, next-generation launch vehicles that are set to follow in terms of availability sometime around 2022-2023.

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Elon Musk does not need an introduction. This South African-born entrepreneur is the Founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, and is one of the most popular entrepreneurs in the world.

Musk recently visited Dubai to launch Tesla in the UAE at the World Government Summit. In an interview, he talked about robotics, autonomous vehicles, AI, etc.

Below are the four most notable predictions made by him at the event.

1- Autonomous cars 

Musk’s Tesla Motors is already in the mid of launching it autonomous vehicle. Google has already piloted the project and is expected to roll it out in the near future. We know that noted startup leaders like Mahesh Murthy and Vijay Sekhar Sharma from India have already pre-booked Tesla cars, which are priced at around INR 35 lakh.  It is expected to hit the Indian streets in a few months. Singapore has already witnessed the roll-out of nuTonomy, a driverless car.

Musk is of an opinion that in probably 10 years, cars that are not fully autonomous will be unusual.

2 – Universal basic income

Musk said that with the robots expected to become norm in a a few years down the line, it will lead to massive job losses. As a result of autonomy across industries, the output of output of goods and services will be extremely high, and everything will get very cheap. So a universal basic income is necessary to solve the problem of job losses.

3- Humans beings and digital intelligence

Humans beings can communicate by typing with their fingers at about 10 bits per second, while computers can communicate at “a trillion bits per second,” Musk said. The human brain will need to combine with technology to keep up.

4- Underground cities.

The solution for overcrowding in cities is a network of tunnels under cities. But there is a challenge as to how will you build tunnels quickly, at low-cost, with high safety? So if tunneling technology could be improved so you could build tunnels fast, cheap, and safe, then that could completely get rid of any traffic situations in cities.”

Musk also repeated opinions he’s given in the past about the dangers of artificial intelligence and the likelihood our world is a simulation.

The post Elon Musk Just Made 4 Predictions About The Future Of Humanity originally appeared on us.yahoo.com

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