To infinity & beyond. IN-SPACe gets 125 proposals from space start-ups

IN-SPACe, the government body for dealing with the private sector space industry, has received 125 proposals from start-ups since last June, Rajeev Jyoti, Director-Technical, IN-SPACe, said here on Saturday.

“Very novel ideas are coming from the start-ups,” Jyoti said. He was speaking at a ‘Space Technology Conclave’, jointly organised by the US Consulate in Chennai and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) is meant to act as “the agency to promote, handhold and authorise private sector activities in the sector, besides enabling sharing of technical facilities and expertise from ISRO,” according to a reply given by the Department of Space to a question raised in the Parliament. 

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Jyoti said that In-SPACe had signed MoUs with 13 such start-ups and would soon sign with four more. He added, IN-SPACe planned to open incubation centers in India, which would help start-ups access funds and legal advice. 

Earlier, it was pointed out by another speaker, Drew Schufletowski, Minister Counselor for Economic, Environment, Science and Technology affairs, US Embassy, New Delhi, that the global space industry in 2021 was valued at $469 billion, (set to grow to $1 trillion by 2040), but India’s share was only 2 per cent ($10 billion).

Meeting ‘an assured market’

Speaking at the conclave, Lt Gen Anil Kumar Bhatt, Director General, Indian Space Association (ISpA), an association of Indian space companies, said that there were 102 space start-ups in India.

Bhatt said that for the Indian space industry to grow and have many SpaceX-like companies, it has to meet only a key challenge — an assured market. Bhatt noted that all along the Indian space industry had two players — the government as a provider of demand and ISRO as the supplier of space services— but now, with the private sector getting into both demand and supply, the market is uncertain.

Observing that the Indian space industry now had an opportunity “like IT and pharma” earlier, Bhatt spoke of the potential of the Indian industry to cater to overseas demand and pointed out that “92 non-space-faring nations now have space assets”. 

SSLV ‘almost ready’

Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, a former ISRO scientist who was involved with the Chandrayaan-2, Chandrayaan-2 and Mangalyaan missions, and is currently the Vice President of the Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology, said that ISRO’s ‘small satellite launch vehicle’ is “almost ready”.

He noted that the first attempted launch of the vehicle (in August) failed, but “definitely we can bounce back”. Dr Annadurai also noted that land acquisition for the new launch port at Kulasekarapatnam near Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu has been completed and a new, state-of-the-art launching station would come up there.