India's space aspirations limited by lack of participation in projects

Private sector is hobbled by the restricted scope of opportunities in India, according to think-tanks

Even though India is among the six top space-faring nations of the world in technological capability and budget, it is the only one that has not yet allowed its private sector to participate in all aspects of space activities, in order to leverage its advanced technological capabilities.

India’s national space sector currently accounts for a minuscule two per cent of the $440 billion global industry, according to published figures. Although the emergence of space start-ups -- India’s New Space -- which is creating IPR and offering end-to-end solutions to customers, a new space think-tank noted that this private sector is hobbled by the restricted scope of opportunities in India.

This is quite unlike the clear policies to encourage and facilitate robust participation of the private sector in developed space economies, including the United States and France.

According to Dr Ranjana Kaul, member of the Board of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) and Secretary-General of Spaceport SARABHAI (S2), a space-centric think-tank that was launched on December 1, little has changed on the ground despite the Indian government having announced the formation of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-SPACe) in June 2020.

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IN-SPACe is proposed to serve as a link between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and private sector companies to leverage local technologies and resources to increase space-based activities. India’s space sector currently accounts for a minuscule two per cent of the $440 billion global industry according to published figures.

“While the 2020 announcement by Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) had raised expectations in the private sector that it would be allowed participation in all aspects of space activities, there is also scepticism. We have not seen a policy framework document telling us how the government proposes to develop a national space economy through private sector participation and how it all unfolds for us,” she said.

During the launch of the think-tank last week, Dr Kaul said that currently, the conversation in India is dominated by regulatory frameworks for rolling out 5G satellite communications services.

“Already, India is the second-largest market for telecommunications and there are Indian companies with global footprints, all of whom are looking now to deliver this magic called 5G to the underserved and unserved across India. And it is in that context that space is being mentioned. However, conversation about space activities as a dedicated vertical of private sector participation, as the Prime Minister had announced, has stopped in other spaces,” she said.

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She added that the first generation space start-ups have already reached a point where they want to do test flights. Indeed, the first space technology start-up Skyroot has already successfully test-fired the first privately developed fully cryogenic rocket engine called Dhawan 1. Already, Pixxel is waiting to launch its first satellite. In fact, each generation of start-ups is separated by a gap of five years, the next generation is already waiting in queue to get to space.

For Awais Ahmed, CEO of Pixxel, a space technology start-up in Bengaluru building a constellation of hyperspectral earth imaging satellites, there is a marked difference in how space technology entrepreneurs navigate the red tape of government in India while applying for licences and developing products, compared to how the system is set up in the United States.

Speaking during the think-tank’s Conversations without Borders debut episode on December 1, Awais said that while participating in the Techstars Space Accelerator in Los Angeles, he found that while there were bureaucratic processes in the US, the regulatory and licensing regimes were, nevertheless, transparent and straightforward.

“On websites, you can clearly download documents that say these are the steps that an organisation has to go through for licenses and send a spacecraft up into space, as well as the timelines that the government agencies are to get back with, as well as the costs that it will actually take; that kind of transparency just helps organisations plan out their activities as well,” he said.

He said that this is something that has not yet been seen in India. “The second thing that puts the US ecosystem ahead of everyone else is the availability of the funding from almost every government organisation that they work with; whether that's NASA, or the defense agencies, every one of them has certain parts of funding earmarked under the Small Business Innovation Research Grants that could be anywhere between half a million dollars to $2 million in the first two years of existence for a start-up,” he said, adding that this kind of budget is vital to fund the early stages of prototype development, to drive innovation.

A third factor helping the US ecosystem is that the government is the largest buyer of all technologies, even those which have not yet been developed.

The think-tank’s mandate is to give “India an international voice, grow the body of knowledge that informs critical areas of space policy, provide policy guidance to the government and transform India into a developed space economy by 2030".

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