Rise of Commercial Space Age in India
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." These golden words by Mahatma Gandhi keep motivating us at SISIR Radar to be a better version of ourselves.
India is becoming a breeding ground for innovative thinkers and problem solvers in the startup sector. At SISIR Radar we continuously push ourselves to be at the forefront of this change in space technology. This is what our founder Tapan Misra has to say about this revolution when he participated in a virtual panel discussion at IIT Hyderabad:
"The old order changeth yielding place to new"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Change is the only certainty. Last Sunday, 23rd January, I participated in a panel discussion virtually at IIT Hyderabad on the interesting hot topic of Rise of Commercial Space Age in India. The truth about change is being played out in space technology and industry in India. Having played a small role in the process, I was excited to interact with the budding stars in the emerging space. They were Naga Bharath Daka of Skyroot Aerospace, Suyas Singh of GalaxEye, and Kranthi Chand of Dhruva Space. They represented the baby steps in three major verticals of space technology, namely launcher, satellite, and payload. The panel discussion was ably moderated by Saket Singh Kaurav of Regional Science Centre, Bhopal. IIT Hyderabad and its student team, led by Shashank Shanbag, deserve accolades for organizing a discussion on this emerging topic, probably for the first time, by any academic institution.
Private initiatives in the space industry are no longer remaining in the realms of policy statements by the Government and DOS Czars. Skyroot tested their small digitally printed cryogenic engine at the end of November 2021. The small steps announced boldly that start-up initiatives in space are here to stay and there is no looking back.
Let us draw our attention to certain stark realities, lest we do not hide ourselves behind complacency. India contributes only 0.4% of 360 Bn US$ global business of space (2019 data). If we set our target of cornering 5% of space business in 5 years, a target equivalent to building an industry of the scale of Indian Railways, both in terms of turnover and employment, the present fledgling initiatives of startups fall woefully short. To unleash the animal power of bright young men and women, India needs an urgent and deft response in opening up policy frameworks and encouraging large financial institutions to employ their muscles in the Indian venture capital ecosystem.
Though we are seeing great interest in the mainstream or upper stream space Industry, let us not forget that almost 70% of global revenue accrues from downstream business in ground equipment, communication, and remote sensing services. I expected that there will be gatecrash in investment in picking low-hanging fruits. However, investors and entrepreneurs are missing a great opportunity by turning away with the misconceived notion of glamour in technology. In fact, ISRO made the same mistakes and today they have reduced themselves from monopoly to competing against nimble-footed competitors for their relevance and survival.
Make in India is a great initiative. It ensures large local employment and improves the skill set. This path ensures local fabrication of low and moderate technology components but depends heavily on the import of key and high technology components to integrate and realize the final product. But this approach does not ensure getting mastery of technology and related innovations. The net result is that we remain continuously laggard in building technology and industry of the future. A classic example is our software industry. In spite of their great contribution to our economy and job market, we are yet to build a branded software or operating system, reducing our opportunity of reaping a bonanza of harvest. Similar is our experience in aircraft manufacturing. Though we are assembling 3rd and 4th generation aircrafts, we are yet to build our own fighter or passenger aircrafts of similar class. Our own single-engine fighter aircraft Tejas, though a creditable product, took four decades to mature. At this time scale, we are guaranteed to be dependent on foreign aircrafts at exorbitant prices for decades to come. Further, the Make in India approach makes our industry vulnerable to inimical changes in global political equations and sudden paradigm shifts in technology innovations.
The panacea for the above-mentioned disadvantages is Made in India approach, where we invest in mastering the technology in India through our own innovations. I will suggest that if we want to be long-term players and leaders of the future space Industry, we should aim for this approach. I know the efforts will be high, results will be slow to start with. But once innovations get ingrained in our culture, there is no looking back.
Unfortunately, venture funds will prefer the Make in India approach as they want a quick and assured return on their investments. The government policies and financial institutions need to encourage patient venture funding, ready to aim for a long-term bonanza from deep tech investment in Made in India approach.
The biggest psychological hindrance to VCs and Angel investors in funding Space Tech is the perception that space technology is a difficult technology and cost-intensive. From my experiences of 35+ years in the field, I can vouch that space technology is no "Rocket Science", a notion cleverly spread by practitioners themselves to hike their own valuations in the industry and society. The key to the almost zero-defect space technology is the simplicity of thought process and great innovation in simple mechanisms and designs to achieve stunningly complex tasks. My experience tells me that rarely a component or hardware fails in space. If we analyze failures, the onus, more often than not, lies at the doorstep of the designer and the lack of proper planning and thought process behind that hardware or software component.
Globally, the software industry progressed by leaps and bounds. But hardware industry is yet to see progress on this scale. My understanding is that the software industry built a culture of cooperation. No sooner than an algorithm or OS or software or a language or an API or an App is developed, it is available to developers worldwide, widely and free of cost to build on them. Unnecessary efforts are not wasted in reinventing wheels. Our fledgling space Industry should learn the lessons from the software industry. They should build a culture of great competition, but greater cooperation and sharing and much lesser mistrust to usher in booming the innovation ecosystem, to propel the industry to global leadership.
Being fortunate enough to be rooted in India, I have confidence in the ingenuity of Indian minds to chart their own course instead of getting misled into the beaten path. More I meet our budding entrepreneurs with their eyes fixed on stars, my conviction only grows.