ISRO's role not diminishing, remains bedrock: IN-SPACe chief

IN-SPACe Chairman Goenka says ISRO's role not diminishing, remains bedrock of India's space sector

Sriharikota, September 6

In a post on X, Goenka said, "There has been some misleading narrative in the media around the future role of ISRO. Let me say it unequivocally: ISRO's role is by no means diminishing. It will remain the bedrock of Indian space sector."

He said the reforms introduced since 2020 are aimed at expanding India's overall space ecosystem, with the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) facilitating and authorising greater participation from non-government entities, while NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) works towards commercialising mature capabilities.

"The idea is to let industry increasingly manufacture and scale mature launch vehicles, satellites and other systems, while ISRO focuses on what it is uniquely placed to do: advanced R&D, scientific missions, strategic missions, new technologies, and infrastructure that is too complex for the private sector to develop on its own," he said.

Goenka said ISRO will continue to remain at the core of India's space programme by leading frontier research and the country's next-generation national missions, including the Bharatiya Antariksh Station by 2035, an Indian crewed mission to the Moon by 2040, next-generation launch systems, and sustained lunar and planetary exploration.

"The direction is not a smaller ISRO. It is a larger Indian space ecosystem, with ISRO pushing the technological frontier," he added.

In another post on X, the IN-SPACe Chairman highlighted the progress made since India's space sector reforms were introduced five years ago, saying the objective was to enable ISRO to explore new frontiers while empowering private industry to scale up.

"Five years ago, when India opened up its space sector, we had two clear objectives: enable ISRO to conquer new frontiers and empower our private industry to scale up. Today, we are seeing both take shape," Goenka said.

He described ISRO's EOS-05 mission as a "major achievement" and said it was "just the beginning". "At the same time, from barely a handful of space startups five years ago, India today has over 450. Indian private industry has already flown a rocket to orbit," he said.

Goenka said the next challenge for India's space sector is scaling up, as the country has set an ambitious target of achieving 50 launches annually by 2030. "A goal of this scale cannot be achieved by one organisation alone. Government and private industry have to build this future together," he said.

He added that ISRO's research will continue to push the boundaries of technology, while private industry must convert that momentum into large-scale manufacturing of rockets, satellites, launch capacity and new technologies.

"That is how we will build a complete space ecosystem and create the capacity to match our ambition. The opportunity before us is immense: build in India, launch from India and serve the world from India. We are well on our way to taking India's space sector to a new orbit, figuratively and literally," he added.

— ANI