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India aims to mirror the success of Nasa and Elon Musk’s SpaceX by turning to the private sector to build rockets and satellites, according to the head of a government space agency.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government plans to use private start-ups to manufacture launch vehicles formerly produced by ISRO, India’s national space agency, said Pawan Goenka, chair of IN-SPACe, which is overseeing the private sector’s push into space. The country also aims to become a “global leader” in the export of small satellites.
“The rocket being used today for missions like Chandrayaan will now be built by the private sector,” Goenka told the Financial Times, referring to India’s lunar exploration programme. “That could amount to a business opportunity of about $4bn-$5bn.”
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The government’s push is motivated in part by a need to match what India sees as a growing strategic threat from China, including its defence capabilities in space. India in recent years has boosted efforts to become an international power in space exploration. In July 2023, it became only the fourth country to land a craft on the Moon, and the first to reach its South Pole, with the Chandrayaan-3 mission.
Two private Indian start-ups, Skyroot Aerospace and Agnikul Cosmos, have successfully completed suborbital tests of launch vehicles. Goenka said India was still “in the process of identifying who will build” the future rockets, and noted that “non-government entities” including state-owned groups outside ISRO would also be eligible.
“There is a greater recognition that there is talent available outside ISRO, and India’s own demands on space have grown, including from its military requirements,” said Raji Pillai, resident senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.
“Chinese and other private companies around the world are also stepping up their presence in the small satellite sector, and if India doesn’t get its act together in terms of improving its launch infrastructure, it will lose in the competition.”
Space start-ups have proliferated around southern India, specialising in areas from lightweight spacecraft materials to the capture and analysis of high-satellite images used in agriculture and mining.
New Delhi in 2023 published a “vision” document for the sector, targeting a space industry with annual revenues of $44bn by 2033 — $11bn of it from exports — up from $8.4bn in 2022.
“We have a great ecosystem already built in. We are super cost-efficient, and we also have a very high tech capability,” said Pawan Kumar Chandana, Hyderabad-based Skyroot’s co-founder and chief executive, describing what he saw as India’s edge in a crowded global space industry dominated by incumbents such as SpaceX and Rocket Lab.
Pixxel, another space start-up based in Bengaluru, said it would this year be launching six satellites “able to cover the globe every 24 hours” using hyperspectral imaging. “The gap in the market was that no one had done it commercially” when the company launched in 2019, said founder and CEO Awais Ahmed.
Five commercial operators in India have submitted proposals for new non-geostationary satellite systems since December 2023, according to a Financial Times analysis of filings to the International Telecommunication Union. Satellite operators must register their planned use of radio spectrum with the UN agency in advance, and this was the first time commercial operators from India had registered satellite spectrum.
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GalaxEye, another earth observation start-up, is launching its Drishti satellite, named after the Hindi word for “vision”, this year. Founder and CEO Suyash Singh said it would offer “consistent imaging from space” during day and night. The company is targeting defence and commercial customers.
Goenka said IN-SPACe was working with the private sector to build a constellation of satellites for Earth observation, and nine consortiums comprising 30 companies were tendering for the contract. A future launch vehicle for small satellites being developed by ISRO will also be handed to private companies.
“The view is that all non-defence-related satellite launches for earth observation — remote sensing — will be done by the private sector,” he said.
Additional reporting by Oliver Hawkins in London
