New Delhi, Oct 12 (PTI) India can emerge as a global hub for the manufacturing of small satellites and launch vehicles and carve a niche for itself in the international space economy, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) chairman Pawan Kumar Goenka has said.
Goenka also wanted India’s private sector to step up and explore opportunities in areas such as providing ground stations as a service (GSaaS), an area which is yet to see the entry of private players.
Goenka was speaking to PTI a day after space sector regulator IN-SPACe released a decadal report that pegged the size of India’s space economy at USD 44 billion by 2033, including USD 11 billion in exports. The report, released on Tuesday, stated that the space sector in India is expected to witness investment to the tune of USD 22 billion over the next decade.
Currently, navigation and communication segments constitute 75 per cent of India’s USD eight billion dollar space economy.
“Over the next decade, the highest growth will come in earth observation and ground stations,” he said.
Goenka said India can shine in four-five areas in the space sector and create a value proposition that is hard to beat.
“India can become a global hub for small launch vehicles. Second opportunity we see is in satellite manufacturing. We would like to become a global hub for manufacturing of small satellites and self-reliant in building large satellites,” he said.
Goenka said that in the ground station segment, the private sector has little role at present as the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) owns all such facilities in the country.
“We believe this is a good opportunity for India to provide ground station as a service (GSaaS) globally. No entrepreneur in India has taken it up yet. There is a barrier to entry because of high initial investment and a barrier to entry because of technology. Technology wise, ISRO can handhold and help. In terms of investments, the industry has to step in,” he said.
He said another area for growth was leveraging technology developed by ISRO through transfer to the industry. Goenka said the transfer of technology of the small satellite launch vehicle to the industry will be a significant move in this direction.
Goenka said the private sector can do a very good job in space applications and harnessing data products.
The IN-SPACe chairman said he was monitoring the progress of 8-10 leading start-ups and their ability to scale up by bringing in investments.
He said the industry, which has been a vendor to ISRO, can move up the value chain to become technology developers and emerge as global suppliers.
He also wanted large industry groups who are not in the space sector yet to explore opportunities in it.
“They (large industry groups) bring in a lot of muscle power, financial resources. As space is a game of heavy investment and long gestation period, some of these companies or groups should be looking at space,” he said.
At present India’s share in the global space economy was two per cent and has the potential to increase to eight per cent over the next decade, Goenka said. PTI SKU SMN
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