When Indian entrepreneur Awais Ahmed founded his satellite startup in Bangalore in 2019, his country was a year away from opening its space industry to the private sector.

“There was absolutely no support or momentum when we started,” said Ahmed, who was 21 when he founded Pixxel, a company that builds a series of Earth imaging satellites.

Since then, the private space sector in India has begun to grow, joining the rapidly growing global market. According to consultancy firm Deloitte, there are currently 190 space startups in India; this number is double the previous year, and private investment is expected to increase by 77 percent between 2021 and 2022.

“A lot of Indian investors didn’t want to look at space technology because it used to carry a lot of risk,” Ahmed told AFP in an interview. “You are now seeing more and more companies bringing more investment into India, and more companies are coming now,” he added.

Pixxel builds satellites for hyperspectral imaging, a technology that captures a wide spectrum of light to capture details that traditional cameras can’t see. The company says it aims to create a “planetary health monitor” that could track climate risks such as floods, wildfires or methane leaks. Pixxel initially tried to use rockets from the state-run Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

“I remember talking to someone from ISRO. We tried to order the launch and they said, “Look, we don’t even have a procedure to launch the Indian satellite.” But if you’re a foreign company, there’s basically a process that doesn’t make sense when we start,” Ahmed said.

In the end, Pixxel had to hire American rocket company SpaceX to launch the first two satellites. Pixxel raises $71 million from investors; $36 million of that came from Google, which will allow the company to launch six more satellites next year. The startup also won a contract with the US intelligence agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, to provide hyperspectral imagery.

A modest budget

Before the opening of the sector in 2020, “all of India’s space activities were under the control of ISRO, the space agency that manages absolutely everything,” said Isabelle Surbes-Verger, an expert on the Indian space sector at France’s National Research Centre.

ISRO’s budget remains relatively modest at $1.9 billion in 2022, six times less than China’s space program. Despite limited resources, India’s space program has made great strides, culminating in the landing of a rover at the moon’s unexplored south pole in August.

The country also launched a solar probe earlier this month and is preparing for a three-day crewed mission into Earth orbit next year. Before the reform, private companies could only act as suppliers to the agency.

“This was impossible because there was so much to do,” Surbes-Verger said.

In April, India deepened sector reform by announcing a new space policy that limits ISRO’s work to research and development and encourages “increased private sector participation in the entire value chain of the space economy.”

India says it accounts for two percent of the $386 billion global space economy and hopes to increase that to nine percent by 2030. The market is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2040.

“Some limitations”

Indian companies have an advantage when it comes to cost as they have a large number of highly skilled engineers at lower salaries than their counterparts abroad. Other Indian startups that have emerged in recent years include Skyroot Aerospace, the first Indian company to launch private rockets.

Dhruva Space develops small satellites and Bellatrix Aerospace specializes in satellite engines.

“Will this create a truly dynamic and profitable industrial structure? Maybe, but definitely with some limitations,” Surbes-Werger said.

India’s reform of the sector is not yet complete. A law opening the sector to foreign investment is expected to be passed in the coming weeks. Source