Private sector and startups have a key role to play as India looks to boost its space activities to grab more share of the global market, said ISRO Chairman Dr S. Somanath, here on Friday.
He said ISRO has identified hundreds of different sectors, which will benefit from research done for space missions, and talks with some selected industries have already started to transfer the technology to them.
Dr Somanath was speaking on "ISRO's vision and the rise of India's space Tech companies" at the country's flagship startup festival Huddle Global 2024, organised by Kerala Startup Mission here.
"Though acknowledged space power, India's share in the world business is merely two percent with $386 billion. The aim of India is to bring it to $500 billion by 2030 and then to $1.5 trillion by 2047," said Dr Somanath.
Referring to the private sector's business activities scope, he added that India has only 15 working space satellites in operation. With a country so competent in space technology and also more and more space satellite manufacturers being established, it is no less than the minimum figure of 500 satellites operating in space.
Now many private players are emerging in the markets who have the capability to manufacture and place satellites in orbit and even private launch pads are coming up," he said.
While there was only one space-related startup in 2014, the number of such startups has now gone up to over 250 by 2024. In 2023, alone, investments in space startups were worth Rs 1,000 crore. Today, more than 450 MSMEs and more than 50 large companies are contributing to the space sector actively.
With India expanding its activities in space to interplanetary exploration, future projects like India's human spaceflight programme Gaganyaan and the Indian Space Station will also be collaborative efforts between ISRO and private-sector.
He said there was immense potential for private sector involvement in designing and launching small satellites, geospatial solutions, communication systems, orbital transfer vehicles, and more.
India has progressed greatly in the space arena by launching 431 foreign satellites so far.
ISRO is working with 61 countries on several projects. The current joint missions include NISAR with NASA, TRISHNA with CNES (France), the G20 Satellite, and the Lunar Polar Exploration mission with JAXA (Japan).
Answering a question from the audience, Dr Somanath said he appreciated Elon Musk's vision of inter-planetary habitation in the years to come, saying that it was in the nature of human beings to explore. "We started from one place and spread to different continents. So, it has been human nature to travel and explore from the very beginning," he added.
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