DailyExpertNews wrote about India’s rapid progress in the space industry.
New York:
DailyExpertNews hails India’s ambitious space program and has said the country, which is currently witnessing an “explosive” growth of aerospace technology start-ups, is poised to “transform the planet’s connection to the final frontier”. and can arise as a “counterweight”. ” to China.
“When it launched its first rocket in 1963, India was a poor country pursuing the world’s most advanced technology. That missile, its nose cone ridden to the launch pad by a bicycle, placed a small payload 200 kilometers above the Earth. India was hardly pretending to keep up with the US and the Soviet Union. In today’s space race, India has found a much more secure position,” said the leading US newspaper.
The article titled “The Surprising Striver in the World’s Space Business” notes that India has become home to at least 140 registered aerospace technology start-ups, “encompassing a local research field exploring the planet’s connection to the final frontier.” will transform.”
“Startup growth has been explosive, jumping five when the pandemic started. And they see a large market to serve,” the newspaper said.
Emphasizing India’s “importance as a scientific power” is central, the NYT report referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington last month at the invitation of President Joe Biden and the joint statement by the two sides said the two leaders ” chart a course to reach new frontiers in all sectors of space cooperation.” In the joint statement, “the leaders called for enhanced commercial cooperation between the US and Indian private sectors across the value chain of the space economy and for addressing export controls and facilitating technology transfer.” The NYT report added that both the US and India “see space as an arena in which India can emerge as a counterbalance to their mutual rival: China.”
“One of India’s advantages is geopolitics,” the paper said, adding that Russia and China had historically offered cheaper options for launches.
“But the war in Ukraine has all but ended Russia’s role as a competitor,” it said, citing the $230 million raised by British satellite start-up OneWeb after Russia seized 36 of its spacecraft in September. The next constellation of satellites from OneWeb was launched into orbit by India’s Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
“Similarly, the U.S. government would be more likely to authorize a U.S. company to send military technology through India than through China,” the NYT said.
It added: “Since June 2020, when Mr Modi announced a boost to the aerospace sector, opening it up to all kinds of private ventures, India has launched a network of companies, each driven by original research and homegrown talent. This year, aerospace start-ups secured $120 million in new investment at a rate that doubles or triples annually.” The NYT report lists Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace and aerospace manufacturer Dhruva Space.
“Skyroot and Dhruva work in the relatively sexy launch and satellite delivery sectors, but together they account for only 8 percent of India’s aerospace pie.
“A much higher proportion comes from companies that specialize in collecting data that is beamed from satellite,” the report said, citing the example of Bengaluru-based start-up Pixxel, co-founded by Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal and which has a “contract with a secret service within the Pentagon.” Pixxel has developed an imaging system to detect patterns on the Earth’s surface that are beyond the range of ordinary color perception.
The NYT article describes India as a “thriving hub of innovation” and “one of the most competitive launch sites in the world.” their growth “has been explosive, jumping five when the pandemic started.” The NYT called India’s supplier ecosystem “staggering in scope”, the NYT said years of doing business with ISRO has resulted in “about 400 private companies in clusters around Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and elsewhere, each dedicated to building specialty screws, sealants and other products that suit for space.” India has an abundance of affordable engineers, but their lower salaries alone cannot beat the competition. That leaves an Indian company like Skyroot to focus on more specialized services, the newspaper said.
Pawan Kumar Chandana, 32, co-founder and CEO of Skyroot Aerospace, expects 30,000 satellites to be launched worldwide this decade.
“We’re more like a taxi,” says Chandana, whose company charges higher rates for launches with smaller payloads, while SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, “is more like a bus or a train, where they take all their passengers and in one destination .” Dhruva Space, which deploys satellites, was India’s first space start-up. Each month, Kranthi Chand, the head of strategy, is barely in Hyderabad as he spends about a week in Europe and a week in the US gathering clients and investors, the article said.
In May, Dhruva Space announced the successful test and space qualification of its 3U and 6U Satellite Orbital Deployers and Orbital Link aboard ISRO’s PSLV-C55 mission.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
