Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched XPoSat (X-ray Polarimeter Satellite) on the first day of the new year to study celestial objects, including black holes, and became just the second country in the world to do so after America. From carrying a rocket’s nose cone on a bicycle, a satellite on a bullock-cart to successfully landing on Moon’s south pole and sending an orbiter on Mars in its first attempt, ISRO truly has come a long way.
ISRO’s Chandrayan-3 and Mission Aditya are much discussed globally. It is natural for a layman to wonder what the benefits of ISRO’s projects are. However, ISRO’s officials claim that the space agency’s campaigns are much cheaper than Hollywood’s science fiction movies. For instance, the Chandrayan mission was accomplished at the cost of Rs 620 crore as compared to the movies such as ‘The Martian’ and ‘Gravity’ whose budgets were nearly Rs 850 crore. ISRO’s frugality lies in its origin. Similar to global brands such as Apple and Microsoft, ISRO also had a humble beginning. ISRO’s founder Vikram Sarabhai set up a small space laboratory in his garage near his residence at Ahmedabad after being requested by Jawaharlal Nehru. Formerly known as Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR), it officially became ISRO on August 15, 1969. The space organisation grew exponentially in the last 54 years, to an extent that today ISRO is very much capable of building the world’s biggest space-tech ecosystem. Presently, more than 400 companies are willingly participating in satellite broadcasting services, satellite communication and space tourism through cooperation with ISRO.
Now, the real question is what and how beneficial are these space campaigns? ISRO’s Chairman Sreedhara Somanath expressed the need to find ways where basic infrastructure and connectivity can be mass distributed. According to a study from Deloitte, the satellite internet market will make up 2% of the global space industry by the year 2040, which currently stands at 1%. ISRO might even benefit tremendously from satellite creation, satellite launching, commercial human space flights and commercial remote sensing. Therefore, ISRO’s 2% expenditure from government coffers from 2021 may stand at less than 18% by 2040. ISRO recovers its expenditure on space missions by launching satellites of other countries along with its own. Earlier, the revenue generated from launching satellites used to go into the account of the Department of Space (DoS) until 2019 when NewSpace India Limited was established. The public sector undertaking is under administrative control of DoS and is responsible for producing, assembling and integrating the launch vehicle with the help of industry consortium. NewSpace’s profit after all the taxes in 2022 stood at Rs 342 crore, while the total revenue accounted for Rs 1,731 crore. This is the reason why the government and ISRO, from 2020, are making efforts towards increasing participation of private companies in the space sector.
ISRO’s main objective is to supply technical support to the companies. So, ISRO’s module has rapidly changed from supply based position to demand based status. The agency, while expanding its operations, is also trying to maintain India’s position as a destination for inexpensive yet reliable service providers in satellite launching. At one point, India’s share in the satellite launching market was 2%, but after Elon Musk’s company SpaceX introduced Falcon 9, a partially reusable launch vehicle, the cost to launch satellites in space has dropped dramatically. ISRO is trying everything in its power to survive in this cut-throat competition.
Around 23 high-profile private companies have shown interest in ISRO’s vision and the space agency will have to come up with its own version of reusable launch vehicles. First planted as a sapling by Vikram Sarabhai and later taken care by Satish Dhawan, ISRO has grown into a full-fledged banyan tree and is regularly watered by thousands of scientists.