Why the Indian Space Agency needs privatization?
Why Privatization? To understand the need for privatization of the Indian Space agency, let’s go back in time and analyze a few other space agencies.
Thinking of the space industry first comes to mind “NASA” which was established in 1958, very first country to enter space exploration along with the Soviet Union. Since then NASA has developed as a giant in this field. NASA’s annual budget for 2020 is around 22.6 Billion 0.48% of USA total spending in FY 2020.
Let’s look at a few of the milestones and achievements of NASA over the years:
NASA currently has max launch capacity of 26,000 kg to the moon, 95,000 kg to LEO, 39,800 to GEO
• Landed on Moon in 1969
• Development International Space Station along with many other stakeholders.
• James Web Telescope
• Hubble telescope
• Have remotely visited every planet in our solar system.
• Viking, Mariner, Voyage, Galileo some famous projects.
• Artemis Program to launch the first female to the moon.
• Space Launch system: Tallest and most powerful rocket in the world.
• Much advance in Space science and technology.
NASA has always been at the forefront and with its advancement has developed many industries along with it. To name a few SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Boeing starliner, and many more such big to small companies in space industries.
Now, let us move to a very interesting space agency which is private and has a lot of attention recently. The SpaceX, Founded by Elon Musk in the year of 2002, which makes it relatively fresh in the business.
SpaceX has evolved over the year at a rocket pace and currently has max launch capacity:16,800kg to mars, 63,800 to LEO, 26,700 to GEO, 3,500 to Pluto with its most advanced launch vehicle “Falcon Heavy”
Now let’s look at the Achievements of SpaceX over the year:
• Falcon Heavy reusable stages.
• Fastest growing private space agency.
• First private company to enter the space industry.
• First private company to Launch astronauts to ISS.
• Recovered many stages of the rocket and hence making space exploration cheaper.
• Future advanced missions Starlinks, starship, dragon Spacecraft, Mars landing
• First private funded liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.
• First private company to send spacecraft to Geosynchronous orbit.
SpaceX has completely revolutionized the game of space. The entire world has changed its perspective and understanding of space because of SpaceX’s vision and mission.
Coming to the Russian Space agency ROSCOMOS, which was established in 1992. Although Russia (Then the Soviet Union) is the competitor of NASA right from the beginning of space race. It’s space missions are not that much in the public domain but has been always at the forefront.
The budget of ROSCOMOS is roughly about $2.77 Billion, roughly around 10% of the NASA budget, yet it has achieved a lot since now.
Let’s look at a few of the milestones and achievements of ROSCOMOS over the years:
• First artificial space satellite (Being a part of Soviet Union)
• First man in Space, more than half-century ago. (Being a part of Soviet Union)
• First Female in Space. (Being a part of Soviet Union)
• First Spacewalk. (Being a part of Soviet Union)
• Almost ½ of all launches of the world today is done from Russia.
• Key player in the development and operation of ISS.
• Several Astronauts to ISS, and many ongoing research in ISS.
• Specter-RG TELESCOPE for Space exploration.
• Soyuz rocket.
• Highly advanced in space application.
• Whole world navigation system.
• Advanced asteroid destroyer.
Russia is leading the path of the space industry along with the USA. Russia has always shown the path for achieving things to the world what earlier thought to be impossible. Many world-leading space agencies including NASA and SpaceX uses a lot of technology which were developed by Russia. Russia has developed many space-related technologies in the ’60s and ’70s which many space agencies are yet struggling to develop.
Let us now talk about ESA: European space agency:
Launch capacity of 11,500kg to GTO, 21,600 to LEO. Has never been very keen on launching humans for space exploration. Mostly focuses on artificial satellites and space application using these satellites.
Total Budget: $7.8 Billion. Pioneer in unmanned space missions and advanced satellite systems. The main launch vehicle is the Ariana series.
Key achievements include:
• Flown by comets
• cataloged stars
• found tons of exoplanets
• orbited Mars, Venus, sun and landed on Saturn moon Titan.
• Worked on Hubble telescope along with NASA.
• Landed on Comets.
Near Future missions:
• Launching James web telescope.
• Landing a rover on Mars.
• Look for life on Jupiter icy moon.
• Most extensive study of earth from outer space.
Other agencies that are very advanced in the space industry are CNSA of China, JAXA of Japan, ISRO of India, CNES of France, DLR of Germany, Canadian Space Agency, and more.
Now lastly let’s talk about ISRO:
The budget of ISRO is roughly 12000 crore for FY-2020
Most powerful launch vehicle: GSLV. With launching capacity of 4000 kg to GTO, 10,000 to LEO.
Major Achievements:
• Successful in 1st attempt at mars mission.
• Launched 104 small and medium satellites in a single rocket.
• Moon missions such as CH-1 and CH-2.
• Having its own navigation system (NAVIC)
• Provides one of the most economical launches in the world.
• Near future mission: Aditya-1, Gaganyan, Chandrayan-3, Venus orbiter mission.Now let’s come back to the question we posed at the beginning of this post. Why privatization is the need of the hour for the Indian Space Agency?
Why despite one of the oldest space agency ISRO lacks to extract its share at a global platform? Part of it can be put to lack of policy revision in the past and also some parts can be credited to long negligence in this field and lack of funding to ISRO.
Secondly, it can be attributed to the lack of private industries specialized in space technology, which lacks in developing world-class software, and especially lack of advanced material science industries in India. These components are very important and are used in the design and realization of space components. Currently, most of the materials and software are imported. Which has created a huge gap between Indian and other advanced countries of the space field. As most of the advanced countries that are in the space industry develop most of their requirements in-house.
ISRO has crossed its 50 years of the journey so far, it has reached the 21st century some 20 years ago but some of its policies are still stuck somewhere in the ’80s. There is a huge requirement of a paradigm shift in policies governing ISRO to make it skyrocket for its future journey. It urgently needs a fresh way of management and also new policies to govern it.
The current decision of the Indian government to restructure Indian Space program was hence was the need of the hour, but still, we have to see what exact changes it brings on the ground because changing things at the ground will not be that easy and hence requires a great deal of determination and will power, to go against public sentiments.
Last month Honourable PM cleared in cabinet meet, the restructuring of India’s space program. Mostly this decision is welcomed by most of the industries and scientists of our country, few are skeptical about the decision to allow private sectors to enter the space field.
As said by Ex-Director of Space Application Centre and current senior advisor to chairman ISRO, Shri Tapan Mishra” Let us assume, one cow eats maximum10 kg of grass per day and gives maximum 10 liters of milk per day. If I want 100 liters of milk per day, what should I do? Obviously, I cannot feed the cow100 kg of grass. The cow will die. Instead, I should bring 10 cows. “. What he was trying to say is we need more industries in this field which can support ISRO and fill this huge gap between demand and supply which has been created over the year.
Seeing the space industry market size, it is expected to grow at a CGAR of 5.6% per annum to a value of $550 billion. Being one of the oldest space agency ISRO has huge potential to play a leading role and has its share in this booming field of space science and technology and stands at the forefront of space exploration. ISRO yearly revenue is roughly 13000 crore and ISRO hardly earns any reasonable profit from commercial services it provides to others, and as per some reports, the Indian space agency has the potential to generate revenue of the order of 10 to 15 times its current revenue in the coming decade. This will generate a lot of employment and develop much-advanced technology as well.
For this India needs to invest heavily in material science, material industries, electronics industry, software industry, start-ups, and many more. This can only be done through the help of private agencies as ISRO has reached its saturation and not growing at any significant pace. When the urge for a profit combines with the scientific quest, the results can be much more effective than in the Government environment. This is the essence.
Private industries engaging in the space field will also provide ISRO the freedom to work on its core values i.e. research and development, by outsourcing all routine works to the private players.
Take for example the telecom industry, prior privatization only BSNL, MTNL, and other govt. run telecom services were major players of this industry. Telecom services use to be very expensive, hardly any general public were able to afford it and hence became saturated over the period. On the other hand today India has many private telecom companies and stands strong as one of the world’s fastest-growing telecom markets with a user base crossing 1.2 billion.
When in 1991 the telecom sector was declared open for private industries it was again few who were skeptical about that decision. Also, the entry of private sector needed regulation, thus TRAI was established in 1997 to regulate this sector. This allowed over the time many private industries to invest and innovate in this sector, companies like Airtel, Docomo, Vodafone, and finally, Reliance Jio came into the picture and completely changed the game of Indian telecom sector. Today India provide cheapest data rate all over the world, even rural area of India is connected to the internet through 4G networks, and soon will be upgraded to 5G network.
Due to this penetration of the internet and mobile across Indian society, many Indian start-ups in different sectors bloomed. Many new technologies were developed. And millions of people got employment due to this simple change. Governance became easy and transparent, people became more informed and educated. The overall life of the general public in every corner of the country became much easy and hassle-free. In short, we can say it has affected every life of Indian citizens and helped the Indian economy as a whole.
Similarly, the decision of opening the Space industry sector for private industries will have a great impact on everyone’s life in the coming decade. A lot of start-ups and innovation will come in this field from the great entrepreneurial minds of our country, which was earlier restricted by strict policies. Space applications will become much cheap and generic. The overall efficiency of the industry will improve as competition will run high. A lot of scientific developments will come our way, as you need not be in ISRO to explore space and work on your ideas. It will definitely contribute immensely to the Indian Economy and also will loosen the burden of the Indian government to fund ISRO, as ISRO will be able to generate much more revenue through services and expertise it will provide to these future private space agencies.
Thanks for sharing! Enjoyed reading.
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