Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 11, 2021 virtually launched the Indian Space Association (ISpA). The ISpA is an industry association of space and satellite companies, with the aim to boost the central government’s efforts in commercial space exploration and space-based communication. The industry association is conceived as an independent and ‘single-window’ agency and will work to open-up the space sector to start-ups and the private sector.
ISpA will work with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of the ISRO, and Indian National Space promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) that acts as a regulator facilitating the use of government facilities to private companies. Lt. Gen. A.K. Bhatt (retd) is appointed as the director general and Jayant Patil, the senior executive vice-president, defence, LsT-NxT, will serve as the chairperson of ISpA.
Significance of ISpA
Since the beginning of the space race between the US and the USSR, governments across the world have spent millions of dollars and collaborated with their respective government agencies to forge ahead in the domain of space exploration. In the recent past, private sector companies, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, have also ventured in the space arena.
Although India has also made remarkable progress in space exploration over time, ISRO has been the major force behind this journey. Now it is high time that the private sector got involved in India’s space domain. In fact, several private sector companies have shown an interest in the space arena, with space-based communication networks coming to the fore.
Aim of ISpA
ISpA is an effort in the direction of making India a leading player in the field of space-related ventures. It will create an enabling policy framework by involving various stakeholders to make India self-reliant and technologically advanced in space sector. It will strive to make the Indian space industry competitive by working towards building global linkages to bring in critical technology and investments into the country to create more high skill jobs.
According to ISRO, the current size of the global space economy is about USD 360 billion. However, India accounts for only about 2 per cent of the space economy with a potential to capture 9 per cent of the global market share by 2030. ISpA can play an important role to fill this gap.
Stakeholders of ISpA and Their Role
The stakeholders of ISpA include leading domestic and global corporations in possession of advanced capabilities in space and satellite technologies. The founding members are: telecom service providers such as Bharti Airtel, engineering firm Larson & Toubro, and other companies such as Nelco of Tata Group, OneWeb, Mapmyindia, Walchandnagar Industries and Alpha Design Technologies Godrej, Hughes India, Ananth Technology Limited, Azista-BST Aerospace Private Limited, BEL, Centum Electronics, and Maxar India.
In India, space-based communications is expected to provide high-speed and affordable internet connectivity to inaccessible areas as well. Several Indian and international companies like SpaceX’s StarLink, Sunil Bharti Mittal’s OneWeb, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, US satellite maker Hughes Communications, etc., have a stake in this segment. For example, OneWeb is building its initial constellation of 648 low-earth orbit satellites and has already put 322 satellites into orbit. By late 2022, it will offer high-speed, low latency connectivity services in India and the rest of the world. StarLink and Amazon are in discussion with the Indian government for a licence to offer satellite-based internet services. SpaceX has a plan to create a network of 12,000 satellites of which over 1,300 are already sky-borne.
Need For Satellite-based Internet in India
The expansion of the internet in India is crucial for realising the vision of digital India. BharatNet programme seeks to connect all villages and gram panchayats with high-speed internet, but there is the challenge of providing connectivity in hilly areas and far-off places of Northeast India.
As per the experts, satellite internet will enable broadband inclusion and help overcome the problem of internet connectivity in remote areas and sparsely populated locations where terrestrial networks have not reached.
At present, however, the use of satellite communications is quite limited. It is used by corporates and institutions for emergencies, critical trans-continental communications, and for connecting to remote areas with no connectivity. India also has very low number of satellite communications customers in comparison to the US and the European Union. As such, there is a major requirement of satellite-based internet in India.
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