Enhancing India’s space-tech manufacturing ecosystem

A private sector space industry has come up. Govt must trust its capabilities and place orders to sustain and build it

In June this year, S Somanath, the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), lamented that there is not enough domestic demand for launching satellites, although rockets are available. During the India Space Congress, he also said that the big private sector players are willing to join the space manufacturing sector but are concerned about the break-even period and securing orders from major customers (the Indian government and the defence forces).

India requires a considerable number of satellites both for civilian and military use – for the purposes of positioning, navigation, timing, weather prediction, disaster prediction and management, crop management, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting, to name some. But what stops India from having satellites in the multiple orbital planes in space to meet these challenges? An examination of India’s needs and existing capabilities in design and manufacturing could throw up some answers to this question.

India’s needs

India suffers from sub-optimal space and airborne coverage to monitor and analyse the security challenges posed by China’s increasingly aggressive presence and activities in India’s areas of interest in the Indian Ocean and on the northern borders. Added to this is the high latency in revisits by existing satellites, mostly owned by foreign government and private players from whom Indian agencies buy images. This leads to delays in updating information and, in the process, critical intelligence may be missed and response delayed. 

Then there is the quantitatively larger requirement for civilian applications -- in the fields of weather monitoring and prediction; crop monitoring and management; maritime resource monitoring and management; disaster management operations, telecommunications, internet, etc.

For national security alone, India needs around 300 satellites in the low-earth orbit (LEO) and a few score more in the geosynchronous orbit to have near-persistent eyes and ears over specific areas of interest. These satellites would be equipped with several types of sensors – electro-optical, infra-red, synthetic aperture radar, electronic and signal intelligence, etc.

Coupled with the systems for civilian applications, India has an initial requirement of a minimum of 1,000 satellites of various classes and types. With increased requirements for enhanced coverage for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) as well as communication systems, this number could easily go beyond a few thousand. Satellites in LEO have a lifespan of five to eight years, necessitating a sustainable cycle of designing, manufacturing, launching and operating them.

Therefore, manufacturing of satellites and their sensors to meet India’s requirements would be a continuous activity over many years, providing sustainable order books for companies. This implies that there will be no shortage of demand today, and in the future. The question then is, why has this potential demand not translated into real orders? 

Manufacturing capabilities

The answer lies in Indian industries’ present capability to match the demand. Private players, both young entrepreneurs and ex-ISRO scientists, have ventured into designing and manufacturing satellites, rockets, and a handful have gone into making satellite-based sensors, too. They have successfully demonstrated their capabilities in these, some of it courtesy the ISRO transferring technologies since the 1980s.

The bigger challenge lies in mastering sensor technologies critical to ISR for national security -- electro-optical, infra-red, signal intelligence and electronic intelligence sensors, synthetic aperture radars, etc., along with their sub-systems. Sensors form the heart of all ISR systems onboard satellites and on airborne platforms (manned and unmanned). These technologies have further applications in other airborne platforms at varying scales and capabilities. With India aiming to be a global aviation hub, mastering the design and manufacturing processes of such critical technologies will make it a powerhouse in the sector.

One reason that India is yet to attain elevated levels of expertise in this area may be the tight control on these areas hitherto exercised by the government-owned public sector industries, where the incentive and urge to excel are limited. The private sector is now a major stakeholder in the process, though. With 100% foreign investment in R&D and space sector manufacturing permitted, India should see a significant leap in the private sector being a regular partner in space activities.

Globally, the number of countries and firms that have the array of capabilities are limited, and many of them won’t be keen on transferring the latest technologies even to their close allies, governmental restrictions on sharing such technologies of strategic nature as well as the desire to maintain monopolies being the main reasons.

This is where the Indian government can step in as a facilitator in four ways. Firstly, identify the critical technologies urgently required for strengthening national security and the technology readiness level of the industry and the customers to absorb these.

Secondly, prioritise near-term ‘achievables’ domestically, identify foreign firms willing to collaborate on transfer of knowledge and technology for long-term needs; and simultaneously encourage intensified R&D in areas where time is not of critical importance.

Thirdly, the government should function as the facilitator for providing the right environment for R&D, which further flows into manufacturing. The still stifling clearance processes must be simplified. Fourth, and most importantly, the government and other user agencies must quickly and affirmatively place orders for the outputs from these satellites to help not only liberate the animal spirits of our hi-tech manufacturing industries, but also strengthen our national security through ‘atmanirbharta.’

India has the requirement; young entrepreneurs in space sector have displayed capabilities and appetite to master critical technologies. The government and its various end-user departments must place trust in India’s space technology firms and place orders for the large-scale requirement of satellites and sensors. If they do not do so, the already delayed opportunity to occupy critical LEO and MEO slots may be lost forever. To arrest the increasing gap with China and other players, the government must actively play the role of being a strategic planner and facilitator, and with a sense of urgency.