ONE of the most widely publicised stories post the launch of Chandrayaan-3, the country’s third mission scheduled to land on the South side of the moon, was in Mint, which had a long piece on the number of private sector entities that had participated in the crafting of ISRO’s ambitious Moon Mission.
‘’The Chandrayaan 3 mission has the potential to help the economy,” said the writer, and went on to add, “It will draw a lot of investment to the sector in exchange for potentially higher profits.
The latest space mission from India demonstrates the country’s extraordinary accomplishments in space exploration and technology. The effort will open up a wide range of potential for Indian private space enterprises. The global space exploration market was valued at USD 486 billion in 2022, with the global space exploration market predicted to reach USD 1,879 billion by 2032. These investments will give a big boost to the Indian companies and the Indian economy.’’
Commercial presence
In fact, the Space Policy 2023 unequivocally states that India’s space programme should “enable, encourage and develop a flourishing commercial presence in space”. A classic example of this directive principle, so to speak, being applied to a real-life situation, is the collaboration on the Chandrayan-3 between ISRO and the private sector.
As the Indian Express said, “The mission is a joint project between ISRO and the Indian private sector. This is the first time that India has partnered with the private sector on a major space mission, and it demonstrates the government’s commitment to the new Space Policy.
The lander and rover that will be deployed on the Moon were developed by a consortium of Indian companies in collaboration with ISRO laboratories. The mission’s ground control systems were also developed by ISRO with the help of the industry, and much of the mission’s data will be processed and analysed by the private sector.’’
ISpA-EY joint report
Late last year The Indian Space Association (ISpA) released a report in collaboration with global consulting giant EY. According to EY, “India accounted for approximately 2.6 per cent of the global space economy in 2020 amounting to $9.6 billion, which was 0.5 per cent of the country’s GDP.”
The report also elaborated on the growth and said that by 2025 satellite services and application segment would form the largest share of the space economy at close to 36 per cent of the overall cake. “Investment in space tech start-ups increased 196% year-on-year in 2021; there are more than 100 space tech start-ups in India. Indian satellite manufacturing opportunity in 2020 was $2.1 billion and is expected to reach $3.2 billion by 2025,” said the report As things stand, India has over 110 space startups with 2021 being a watershed year for the segment, with investments reaching $68m, a y-o-y increase of 196 per cent. Believe it or not, the number of start-ups in 2021 was close to fifty – almost a majority by first-generation engineering and science graduates who were keen to chart their course in the space business.
Taking to next level
ISRO Chairman S Somnath, who also spoke at the function where the EY report was unveiled, said: “Our goal is to make the space and the rise of India much bigger in the scale of operation.
India has reached a point where we need to take the space sector to the next level and this is where the whole idea of opening up the space where the most important part is the knowledge base. Downstream applications are less complex, but when you go upstream it becomes much more complex and very difficult to provide failures.
And this is where we need to support each other and this is where the role of space comes in. The space sector can solve a lot of problems and important issues of climate, mapping, and internet services. These are few emerging markets which we will see growing.”
What he did not say was the humongous work being done on the security and defence side by both the private sector and ISRO-driven entities to make the country truly space-proof in terms of technology utilisation and interoperability. India joining the Artemis Accord, collaborating with NASA, and opening the field to the private sector are just some of the pieces in this jigsaw. The next few years should see a seismic change in this sector. And as Somnath says, the sky is the limit.
