“ WE ARE UNLOCKING INDIA’S SPACE POTENTIAL ”

With the Union government announcing the setting up of IN-SPACe—an autonomous agency under the Department of Space to promote cooperation with the private sector—last week, India took a giant step towards opening its national space programme to private players. Until now, the Indian Space Research Organisaton (ISRO) has had a monopoly on all space-related activity, including building rockets and satellites and launching them into orbit. Private firms were limited to making sub-systems and assembling spacecraft, but were never permitted to own them or manage their operations. The government has now levelled the field and is creating an ecosystem for private players to augment, in a big way, the job that ISRO is doing. In order to reduce the investment burden for private players,