APOGEE STAFF
The commander of the Indian Air Force said the nation should seek partnerships with commercial enterprises to advance its military and civilian space goals. Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari told a geospatial intelligence conference in New Delhi in June 2022 that he sees India’s joint-service Defence Space Agency playing a leading role in the fusion of civil and military interests to develop space capability, according to BW Businessworld. “This would mandate an increased interplay with both government and commercial space agencies,” Chaudhari said.
His comments came on the heels of a call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to elevate India’s contribution to global space advancements through the incorporation of private industry. “A wonderful chapter has been added in the development journey of modern India in the 21st century,” Modi said during the opening in June 2022 of the headquarters for India’s space promotion center, IN-SPACe.
India has launched 130 of its own satellites through the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), including the GSAT-7 series for the military and a regional positioning, navigation and timing network that the U.S. sees as a possible future complement to its own Global Positioning System. India also has launched some 340 satellites for 36 other nations, most of them nanosatellites weighing less than 10 kilograms or 22 pounds.
The calls for greater private sector involvement, and taking advantage of the innovation it affords, comes as similar initiatives are underway in the U.S. and elsewhere. India has more than 350 private space companies, according to a new study of the global space tech economy quoted in The Times of India newspaper. India entered into a space situational agreement with the United States in April 2022, a deal the Pentagon said would “lay the groundwork for more advanced cooperation in space.”
“The model ISRO is following must change to that in the U.S.,” Jayakumar Venkatesan, chief executive officer with India’s Valles Marineris International, told The Times of India. “We can’t have a vendor-customer relationship model if we want industry to grow. It must be partnership based.”