Type: DOMR

• The government approved the creation of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) to ensure greater private participation in India’s space activities.
• This decision is described as historic being part of an important set of reforms to open up the space sector and make space-based applications and services more widely accessible to everyone.

Practice question for mains:

Q. What is IN-SPACe? Discuss how it would benefit ISRO and contribute to India’s space economy.

What is IN-SPACe?

• IN-SPACe is supposed to be a facilitator, and also a regulator.
• It will act as an interface between ISRO and private parties and assess how best to utilise India’s space resources and increase space-based activities.
• IN-SPACe is the second space organisation created by the government in the last two years.
• In the 2019 Budget, the government had announced the setting up of a New Space India Limited (NSIL), a public sector company that would serve as a marketing arm of ISRO.

Confusion over NSIL and ANTRIX

• NSIL’s main purpose is to market the technologies developed by ISRO and bring it more clients that need space-based services.
• That role, incidentally, was already being performed by Antrix Corporation, another PSU working under the Department of Space, and which still exists.
• It is still not very clear why there was a need for another organisation with overlapping function.
• The government now had clarified the role of NSIL that it would have a demand-driven approach rather than the current supply-driven strategy.
• Essentially, what that means is that instead of just marketing what ISRO has to offer, NSIL would listen to the needs of the clients and ask ISRO to fulfil those.

Then, why was IN-SPACe needed?

(1) ISRO and its limited resources

• It is not that there is no private industry involvement in India’s space sector.
• In fact, a large part of the manufacturing and fabrication of rockets and satellites now happens in the private sector. There is increasing participation of research institutions as well.
• Indian industry, however, is unable to compete, because till now its role has been mainly that of suppliers of components and sub-systems.
• Indian industries do not have the resources or the technology to undertake independent space projects of the kind that US companies such as SpaceX have been doing or provide space-based services.

(2) India and the global space economy

• Indian industry had a barely three per cent share in a rapidly growing global space economy which was already worth at least $360 billion.
• Only two per cent of this market was for rocket and satellite launch services, which require fairly large infrastructure and heavy investment.
• The remaining 95 per cent related to satellite-based services, and ground-based systems.

(3) Catering to domestic demands

• The demand for space-based applications and services is growing even within India, and ISRO is unable to cater to this.
• The need for satellite data, imageries and space technology now cuts across sectors, from weather to agriculture to transport to urban development and more.
• If ISRO is to provide everything, it would have to be expanded 10 times the current level to meet all the demand that is arising.

(4) Promoting other private players

• Right now, all launches from India happen on ISRO rockets, the different versions of PSLV and GSLV.
• There were a few companies that were in the process of developing their own launch vehicles, the rockets like ISRO’s PSLV that carry the satellites and other payloads into space.
• Now ISRO could provide all its facilities to private players whose projects had been approved by IN-SPACe.

How ISRO gains from all these?

• There are two main reasons why enhanced private involvement in the space sector seems important.
• One is commercial, and the other strategic. And ISRO seems unable to satisfy this need on its own.
• Of course, there is a need for greater dissemination of space technologies, better utilization of space resources, and increased requirement of space-based services.
• The private industry will also free up ISRO to concentrate on science, research and development, interplanetary exploration and strategic launches.
• Right now too much of ISRO’s resources are consumed by routine activities that delay its more strategic objectives.

A win-win situation for all

• ISRO, like NASA, is essentially a scientific organisation whose main objective is the exploration of space and carrying out scientific missions.
• There are a number of ambitious space missions lined up in the coming years, including a mission to observe the Sun, a mission to the Moon, a human spaceflight, and then, possibly, a human landing on the Moon.
• And it is not that private players will wean away from the revenues that ISRO gets through commercial launches.
• The space-based economy is expected to “explode” in the next few years, even in India, and there would be more than enough for all.
• In addition, ISRO can earn some money by making its facilities and data available to private players.