Dr Chaitanya Giri
The years of the COVID-19 global pandemic are fast becoming a thing of history. Analysts worldwide have already begun comparing how different the pre and post-COVID times are. But scholarly analyses backed by reliable data will only come as the world accrues enough data points to prove that post-COVID, the world has changed drastically. As for the Indian space program, it will see the years between 2019 and 2022, which also coincide with the pandemic, as breakthrough years. Breakthrough because India, without a doubt, now has three arms to the space program – civilian-led by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), commercial led by the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), and military led by the incumbent Defence Space Agency (DSA). The making of IN-SPACe and DSA is no less significant than the liberalisation of the Indian economy.
The 2022 Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was notable for the space program. The budget for India’s 75th year of independence laid priorities for ‘India at 100’. These priorities will be pursued during the next 25 years – the Amrit Kaal. The priorities are PM Gati shakti, financing of investments, inclusive development, productivity enhancement and investments, sunrise opportunities, energy transition, and climate action. Among the sunrise opportunities, the Indian government has identified vital industrial domains that can assist India’s sustainable development, generate employment for youth, make Indian industry more effective and competitive, and modernise the country. These ‘sunrise’ domains are clean mobility systems, green energy, artificial intelligence (AI), genomics and pharmaceuticals, geospatial systems and drones, semiconductors and their ecosystem, and the space economy.
For the first time, the terminology of ‘space economy’ has come out so vividly in such a high-impact government document as the Union Budget. The term ‘space economy’ also signifies the Indian government’s successful first intervention with the space reforms of 2020, when it opened doors to the private entities for the space sector with strategic contemplation. The space reforms led to the establishment of the IN-SPACe, as the prime facilitating, regulating, and private space sector promoting agency. The reforms also spawned a new public sector enterprise under the Department of Space, the New Space India Limited (NSIL), which has already begun commercialising ISRO technologies. It is doing so through commercial transfers of ISRO spin-offs, provision of services through ISRO technologies and products, construction of customised products and satellite-based and ground-based services from the ISRO stable, and commercialising various space applications and subsystems. What has defence got to do with this?
A lot has been happening on the ‘defence space’ front too. A tremendous amount of cutting-edge innovation has happened for customising the geospatial and telecommunication needs of Indian intelligence agencies and military organisations. Many of these cutting-edge innovations have happened on the testbed of dual-use technologies. However, India has recently begun focusing on wholly security-oriented space technologies. A prime example is the electronics intelligence (ELINT) payload developed by the Defence Research Development Organisation under Project Kautilya, launched in April 2019. These technologies are exclusive to the security establishment; procuring them requires a dedicated research, development, and innovation-to-commercialisation value chain.
The Indian narrative around high-technology space, aerospace, and defence systems revolves around ISRO and the Defence Rearch and Development Organisation (DRDO). Both these institutions have done more than what they have been tasked to do since their inception. They have always needed the Indian industry’s support, and the industry has risen to challenges and requirements and delivered. Suppose one is to talk about the industry’s role in the defence space. In that case, one cannot oversee the defence indigenisation aspects demonstrated along with the ‘Mission Shakti’ anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities in March 2019.
Parallelly, through NSIL, the productionisation of the commercially-viable launch vehicles with the participation of private space and aerospace players is also in advanced stages. Overall, after being vendors for all these years to ISRO and DRDO, indigenous space and aerospace products are now being passed on to the private sector keeping emergent market demands and national strategic necessities in sight. Negative-import lists were expedited first between the conventional defence sector indigenisation through Make in India. However, the government already took steps to elevate the private sector from vendor to original equipment manufacturer. The space reforms did precisely that. Take, for example, the slew of pilot Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) demonstrations from space startups like Skyroot Aerospace, Pixxel, Agnikul Cosmos, and Dhruva Space, among others. But where does defence space stand in all this?
Again, let’s go back to the summer of 2019. The most significant development that happened then, after the ASAT test, was the establishment of the DSA. One has to fathom that, despite the COVID-19 pandemic aberration, India has spawned two new space agencies since then. One, IN-SPACe, is entirely working on the commercial end, and the other on the military end. Thereafter, from a further vantage, it is inevitable that India has laid the foundation of ‘India’s Military-Civil Fusion,’ unlike one seen in China or the United States.
Take a look at the above three-circle Venn Diagram. ISRO remains in the custody of the government’s civilian space programme and, with its time-tested liaisons with the industry, has its own’ civilian-commercial fusion’ mechanism. The civilian-commercial fusion will need to mature now that ISRO has been unburdened from several dead weights and will now do what was always meant to do – cutting-edge space research and development. Likewise, the DSA, a successor to the Strategic Space Cell and a predecessor to the potential Indian Space/Cyber Force, will tend to cultivate the ‘military-commercial fusion’ as shown in the green-yellow intersection of the same Venn Diagram.
It is quite evident from this segmentation that the innovation and industrial ecosystems steered by IN-SPACe will eventually cater to the civilian and military space programs equitably. For example, an ‘on-demand launch service’ for the civilian-commercial fusion is a ‘quick-reaction launch service’ for the military-commercial fusion. Space activities, as repeated umpteen number of times, are inherently dual-use. The following steps of the ongoing ‘space reforms’ must cultivate commercial players from India to contribute to both ‘civilian-commercial fusion’ and ‘military-commercial fusion.’
The third and the most elusive intersection of the Venn Diagram is the merger of the three. What technologies can be spawned with stakes from the civilian, commercial and military space technology ecosystems? Will we look at metastrategic technologies such as interplanetary human spaceflight, interstellar spacecraft, cislunar infrastructure connectivity, asteroid defence, or anything more elusive? The segmentation that the Indian government has created has boundless possibilities.
So, how do we connect these developments with the Indian government’s identification of the space economy as a sunrise sector? Although simplistic, the Venn Diagram shows that the commercial space ecosystem will be Janus-faced, catering to prosperity and security. Where certain space technologies and applications will have tremendous potential in the open markets, some technologies and applications will be relevant only to the classified domains. Our space ecosystem will have to cater to both prosperity and security. And while India pursues this path, there is no scope for anyone to call us bellicose.
Space-capable countries run their space programs on the hawkish track of ‘space dominance’ and the dovish track of ‘space assurance.’ This fact has been well acknowledged by Washingtonian think tanks, especially the well-regarded Stimson Center, since 2003. Both ways are assertive. Take, for example, the vehement disapproval of India’s ASAT tests received from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), not the Pentagon. It is beside the point that hardly one of the numerous fragments of the Mission Shakti test lingers in the low-Earth orbit, which will also burn out in the atmosphere. But did the civilian space agencies of the West contradict the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) decision of November 2019 to deem ‘outer space as the new ‘operational domain? Did they oppose the establishment of the various military space forces and military space commands that have mushroomed in the past decade? The answer is no.
In May 2022, the renowned Washingtonian think tank, Atlantic Council, criticised the Pentagon for not following the ‘commercial-first’ mandate that the US Congress has legislated. The report further acknowledges that the commercial space industry will play a central role in global space security. This fact applies to India too.
The Indian commercial space players – research incubators, startups, Micro, Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), and large corporations – will need access to both hawkish- and dovish-track domestic and international space markets. Therefore, a steady supply of classified and open-market contracts will be necessary to let the sunrise of the space economy happen. The discussions at the Bengaluru Space Expo, the India Space Congress, and various other conclaves and seminars have profusely written about the global space economy reaching USD 1 to 3 trillion by the 2040s. These numbers come from a few Western space industry consulting firms.
But what is the actual potential of the Indian space economy? How steadfast is India about increasing its share in the global space economy? What role will space sector indigenisation play in achieving a substantial percentage of the worldwide space economy? To positively answer these questions, the engine of India’s space economy must run full throttle, and this is possible only if New Delhi creates a ‘Space Military Civil Fusion’ and endures the intersections, shown in the Venn Diagram, staunchly. India took baby steps during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will have to derive effective results during the Amrit Kaal.
Dr. Chaitanya Giri is a Consultant for Space Policy & Space Diplomacy at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi, India, and an Affiliate Scientist at the Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
