India looks to tap into trillion dollar space industry
October 21, 2021
By Chris Forrester
Dr S Somanath, director of India’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), part of the nation’s India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) speaking at India’s pavilion at the Dubai EXPO event, said: “The space sector is on its way to becoming a trillion-dollar industry and the role of start-ups will be crucial in this journey.”
He explained that for start-ups to succeed, they must either reinvent existing technology to cause a disruption in the existing domain, generate new technologies and ideas into the sector, or use innovative ideas to put existing products or projects to new uses.
India itself is planning to boost its space sector as part of the global market. The country has recently revised its existing policies to involve the private sector and is also looking at international cooperation.
A recent report from EY says that the Indian satellite market accounted for just 2.6 per cent (at about $9.6 billion) of the global space economy of some $371 billion in 2020. EY says that India’s space-based economy will expand to $12.8 billion by 2025.