The decade from 2014 to 2024 has been a landmark decade for the Indian space sector, in which India has risen to the “highest point in the world” with a string of successful missions and landmark policy measures. In this decade, India has built on the foundations laid by hard work in the past few decades.
India’s space journey may be divided into three stages — sowing, flowering and fruition.
Think of the seeding phase as the period between the sounding rockets of the 1970s and the development of the PSLV rocket. Till the 1990s, India’s only pride was the PSLV rocket, whose enduring success earned it the nickname “workhorse” to this day. For a country that had to stand on its own two feet to pave its way to the heavens, the indigenous rocket (capable of carrying up to 3.25 tonnes of payload to low Earth orbit, or 1.75 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit, 36,000 km above the Earth) was a source of pride, but little else.
But scientists were hard at work in the labs and their efforts were beginning to blossom. In 2001, India launched its first “big rocket” GSLV, albeit with a Russian upper stage cryogenic engine. The first rocket never left the pad. In the second attempt, the rocket launched a (test) satellite to the wrong location. But since then, India’s space sector has been steadily climbing the ladder of success. Its first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1 (2008), was hailed as it not only achieved its mission of reaching the lunar orbit and finding evidence of water on the lunar surface, but also achieved much more. It was followed by Mangalyaan (2013), which earned India global acclaim as it was the first country to put a spacecraft into Mars orbit, a feat no other country had managed to achieve before.
When the NDA government came to power in 2014, India’s space industry was bolstered by two successes and was looking forward to more. The fruitful phase had begun.
Lunar Mission
The crowning moment of Indian space travel will undoubtedly be on August 23, 2023 at 18:03 when the Chandrayaan-3 lander will land silently on the surface of the moon, making India the fourth country in the world to do so after the US, Russia and China (Japan will join the ranks later). Following the success of Chandrayaan-3 (based on the lessons learned from the failed Chandrayaan-2), the Aditya L-1 mission achieved a commendable feat: placing a spacecraft (space telescope) at the L-1 point between the sun and the earth, 1.5 million km away from the earth, and observing the sun continuously from there. India was the fourth country in the world to do so, again after the US, Europe and China.
At the same time, India also developed its own Regional Navigation Satellite System (NaVIC), which is a regional version of the “Global Positioning System” (GPS). Only the United States, Europe, Russia and China have their own Global Positioning Systems, while Japan and India have Regional Positioning Systems. In addition, ISRO has developed other rockets with large markets, such as the heavier LVM-3 rocket and the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) for smaller payloads.
Meanwhile, in March 2019, India demonstrated an anti-satellite capability, tracking and attacking a (defunct) Indian satellite in low orbit, making it the fourth country to do so after the United States, Russia and China. (India has a large stock of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can fly into space and return, developed in the context of its space program.)
Future Plans
ISRO has exciting plans. Near-term plans include sending two or three Indians into space (Gaganyaan) and back, missions to Venus (Sukrayaan) and asteroids, while longer-term plans include robotic and manned lunar exploration and building an Indian space station (Indian Space Station). Developed countries that were once hesitant to share technologies with India are now eager to collaborate. The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) will provide an “unprecedented view” of the Earth. France’s CNES and ISRO have partnered to build the High Resolution Thermal Infrared Imaging Satellite for Natural Resource Assessment (TRISHNA) for use in climate monitoring and operational applications.
Private sector participation
But even all these successes would be enough to call 2014-2024 a “landmark decade”. The landmark part of this story is India opening up its space sector to private participation. After announcing its intention in June 2020 and setting up a space regulatory body, the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) in October 2021, the Union government unveiled the Indian Space Policy 2023 in April. The policy set out a broad framework for the participation of non-governmental organisations in areas such as spacecraft, satellites, data delivery and setting up ground stations. Rules for invoking the policy were announced in May 2024. Previously, the role of the private sector was limited to manufacturing parts for ISRO.
The private sector is now celebrating. India has more than 400 space-related companies, about half of which are start-ups (including two rocket manufacturers), which have attracted $330 million in investments over the past three years. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is building a new launch station for small rocket launches at Kulasekarapatnam in Tamil Nadu. IN-SPACe has received about 500 applications for licenses and signed more than 50 technology transfer agreements. According to Invest India, India’s official investment promotion agency, India’s space economy was worth $9.6 billion in 2020, and the country aims to increase this figure to $44 billion by 2033.
This is the 20th article in the “10 Years of NDAs” series.
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