In 1962, Vikram Sarabhai outlined the vision for the Indian space programme.

While the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a Cold War-fuelled ‘space race’, Sarabhai envisioned a space programme that would improve the lives of people of the newly-independent nation. To him, human spaceflight that the United States and Russia were dabbling in was a fantasy that India would stay away from.

“There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flights. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society,” said Sarabhai, the Father of the Indian Space Programme.

Under this vision, space applications were used for Earth-centric purposes: weather forecasting, communication, broadcasting, etc. It was not until the 1990s that India started pivoting to space sciences and space exploration.

In 1996, the AstroSat project was approved — India’s first astronomical satellite. The satellite was launched in 2015. In 1999, a mission to the Moon was conceived and the work began the next year. In 2003, the then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced the project and named it ‘Chandrayaan’.

In 2008, when India launched Chandrayaan-1, the Indian space programme finally entered adolescence after a prolonged infancy.

Slow start but rapid progress

While it took nearly two decades for AstroSat to become a reality, the progress since then has been rapid, says astrophysicist Somak Raychaudhury, who has been associated with the Indian space programme for decades.

“Now, we have a whole line-up of scientific missions. The AstroSat was a very encouraging project for us as it turned out to be the best of its kind in the world — even better than NASA’s similar satellite. The ISRO is working on a follow-up mission to it. Last year’s Aditya-L1 mission was another such moment that cemented India’s position as a major player in space sciences,” says Raychaudhury, who currently serves as the Vice Chancellor of Ashoka University.

In 2013, India launched the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) and it made international headlines. The crowning achievement has, however, been the Chandrayaan project.

In 2009, an American radar onboard Chandrayaan-1 detected water in the form of ice on the Moon.

In 2023, four years after a failed attempt, the Chandrayaan-3 scripted history by becoming the first spacecraft to land on the unexplored south pole region of the Moon. For the next two weeks, the Chandrayaan-3 conducted research and gathered data there as humanity’s first set of eyes and ears.

Weeks later, India launched Aditya-L1 to study the Sun. The success of the Chandrayaan-3 and the launch of Aditya-L1 marked the coming of age of the Indian space programme.

In the coming years, several interesting projects are in the works. The most sought-after is of course the Gaganyaan, the human spaceflight programme of India. The first flight is expected sometime next year.

Other projects in the works include the Daksha project to build high-energy space telescopes and AstroSat’s successor INSIST.

Among the exploratory projects is the LUPEX mission of ISRO and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JEXA). Under the mission, a Japanese rocket would carry an Indian lander and a Japanese rover to the Moon to look for the presence of water in the polar regions. It is scheduled for next year.

The ISRO and NASA are also working on an Earth-observation satellite called NISAR. It is expected to be launched later this year.

In less than three decades, India has come a long way — even though there is a long way to go. From barely having a focus on space sciences and exploration, India is now not only emerging as a leading player but has also carved out a niche for itself. The Indian space programme has had a much higher return on investment as it has done jobs at a fraction of the cost that other agencies incur.

While such an approach has been mocked at times, space scientist Raychaudhury tells Firstpost that such a ‘jugaad’ approach of India is something to be admired and studied.

“The affordable missions to Mars and Moon were not gimmicky. Cost-effectiveness is our strength. The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in Pune is the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope of its kind. We built it at 1/50th of the cost that a Western nation would have incurred. This was achieved through the unique solutions that we came up with. While these solutions are dubbed ‘jugaad’, these are smart solutions instead of being inferior quick-fixes,” says Raychaudhary.

The real test, however, is the human spaceflight programme. In the next one or two years, India plans to send four astronauts to space. By 2035, India envisions an Indian space station and wants to land Indians on the Moon by 2040.

Indian Space Policy takes shape — finally

Even as more projects —scientific as well as exploratory— were approved, the decisions were largely ad-hoc and there was no broad policy framework. This started to change only after 2019, according to space policy researcher Ashwin Prasad.

In 2020, the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) was set up. The Indian Space Policy (ISP) of 2023 would make IN-SPACe the regulator and promoter of India’s space sector.

“By 2019, there was a realisation that we were losing out a lot by not having a laid-down space policy and by depending upon ISRO for everything. The reforms that began were two-fold. One, some roles and responsibilities were taken from ISRO. Two, the government started promoting the private sector,” says Prasad, a Research Analyst at the High-Tech Geopolitics Programme at the Takshashila Institution.

The progress is seen in numbers. While there was just one space start-up in 2014, there were around 100 startups by 2022 and 189 by 2024.

In May, the IN-SPACe followed up last year’s ISP with detailed norms and guidelines for the authorisation of space-related activities.

Earlier this year, the Narendra Modi government liberalised the foreign direct investment (FDI) regime in the space sector: allowing 100 per cent FDI in the manufacturing of components, systems/subsystems; 74 per cent in satellite manufacturing and operations; and 49 per cent in producing launch vehicles and spaceports.

But there is a long way to go

Even though a policy framework has come up in the past five years and a single-window regulator IN-SPACe has been created which has boosted the ease of doing business, there is a lot of ground to be covered.

For one, the norms, guidelines, and procedures (NGP) published by the IN-SPACe this year skip scientific missions entirely, says Prasad.

“The NGP has not mentioned anything about the private sector pursuing scientific missions. This means that the onus of scientific missions remains only on the ISRO as there is simply no provision for private entities to pursue space sciences even if they desire to,” says Prasad.

Despite the positives that the ISP and norms introduced in recent years, there are several glaring misses.

For one, the IN-SPACe is both a regulator and a promoter — the dual-hat role is bound to clash at some point. Moreover, its autonomy stands severely compromised as while IN-SPACe is meant to regulate all space-related entities, including ISRO, and treat them equally, it falls under the Department of Space which is headed by the chief of ISRO. This means that the regulator works under the entity it is supposed to regulate.

As of now, it is not the IN-SPACe but the chief of ISRO who is the space tsar of the Indian space sector. The ISRO chief wears three hats: the Chairperson of ISRO, the Secretary of the Department of Space (DoS), and the Chairperson of the Space Commission. The IN-SPACe being subservient to ISRO means there is a fundamental conflict of interest here.

As of now, the Indian space sector is in a very nascent stage and there are neither many companies nor that much activity, so everything is sorted, but down the line when more private companies come up and they scale up their activities and compete directly with the ISRO, the conflict of interest is bound to arise and the confidence in IN-SPACe’s ability to provide a level-playing field to all parties will be severely tested, says Prasad, the space policy researcher at Takshashila.

There is one more glaring gap in the policy framework: it has no legal backing.

The ISP as well as the IN-SPACe are purely a product of executive actions with no legal backing. This means that not only is IN-SPACe’s ability as a fair regulator compromised, but its foundations are also shaky.

Prasad tells Firstpost, “If someone challenges IN-SPACe’s decisions someday or slaps cases of some other kind, the entire existence of IN-SPACe and Indian Space Policy could come under question as there is no act of parliament governing them.”

Prasad says that a possible solution is to have a regulator like the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), which is established by an act of parliament and is fairly independent of the entities it regulates — unlike IN-SPACe which is subservient to ISRO’s chief whom it regulates.

The initial investors’ enthusiasm that began in 2018-19 around the time the Indian space sector showed signs of opening up has also sobered up by now and has been replaced by cautious optimism, says a head of policy of a Bengaluru-based start-up.

“The investors have had some reality checks. Unlike traditional sectors where they may get good returns on investments (RoI) in three or four years, the time is usually 10 years in the space sector. The industry is not just capital-intensive but it also takes longer to produce returns. So, instead of jumpy enthusiasm, we now have cautious optimism,” says this space policy professional on the condition of anonymity.

In other aspects of the Indian space industry, however, there is indeed a great deal of enthusiasm. Pranav R Satyanath, a Policy Associate at space start-up SkyServe, says the optimism is high as Indian start-ups are relatively cost-effective — even with a longer RoI period.

“The Indian space goods manufacturers are a lot cheaper than their foreign counterparts, so that’s an edge for India. This is bringing in lots of investments despite the investor sentiment sobering up,” says Satyanath.

Even with such positives, we should not bask too much in glory and should instead focus on ramping up investments in research and development, says space scientist Chaitanya Giri.

Referring to the Indian success with MOM and Chandrayaan at low cost, Giri says that while we hailed the low-cost achievements at one point, we can’t stick to the approach forever and more money needs to be poured in for bigger ambitions.

“Sometimes, we bask too much in the glory. There was once a time when we could only afford minimal investment. We still pulled huge gains. But such an approach cannot —and should not— continue. Now, the public is willing to let the government pour money in the space sector-related research and development activities. The space programme has also become a bipartisan success in India as successive governments have promoted it. Now, it’s time to put in more efforts financially as we chase bigger aims,” says Giri, a Fellow at Observer Research Foundation’s (ORF) Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology.

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From a slow start to a concrete policy, how India has shaped space research with hits and misses