On March 26, 2023, the state-owned New Space India Limited launched three dozen satellites from Sriharikota for the One Web Limited. This move has not only salvaged the UK Satellite Company’s bid to create a global broadband internet network in the skies, but also signalled Indian ambitions in the sector.
According to estimates from Ernst and Young, by 2025, the space economy is projected to grow to $600million from $447 billion in 2020. The Demand for high speed internet delivered from space has made launching satellites into a orbit a prosperous business.
Along with SpaceX, the Russians and the Chinese have been the major providers of satellite launches, given their long running space programs. However, the war in Ukraine and Beijing’s tensions with the US mean that they are now off limits to many would be customers.
The One Web turned to India as Russia had scuppered the original launch last year, taking 36 spacecraft as hostage. At the same time, French organisation Arianespace faced problems getting its newest rocket ready for use.
Similarly, the Virgin Orbit Holdings, a satellite company tied to the British Billionaire Richard Branson said last week that it was ceasing operations indefinitely following a launch failure in January 2023.
A principal analyst with the Northern Sky Research (space research and consulting firm), Dallas Kasaboski stated- “If SpaceX is full, busy or expensive, you have to look elsewhere. China cannot work with North America and US drives the majority of the demand.”
According to Dallas, India is in a much better place politically. Chinese rockets aren’t good options for many satellite operators partly because of growing concerns about Beijing accessing Western Technology.
By contrast, India has moved closer to US and other regional powers such as Australia, Japan. Moreover, it launches cost less than other rivals.
The development of the space sector is a key agenda of PM Narendra Modi’s Make in India campaign which aims to put worlds fifth largest economy as a top destination for technological innovation. The Modi Administration has tried to make India’s Space Agency more business friendly by encouraging growth of startups.
“Demand is so huge” said Dr Radhakrishnan, the chairman and managing director of New Space which was created in 2019 as a commercial arm of the space agency, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation).
“There is going to be a lot of shortage of heavy lift launchers that will be required”, he said.
NewSpace should help India compete on a global stage. The March 26 launch follows a successful operation in October when the company launched another 36 satellites for One Web. It is ramping up the production of India’s largest domestically developed rocket, the LVM3.
The chief executive of One Web, Neil Masterson said “New Space is has a real opportunity to be a mainstream commercial launch provider In the last fiscal year, the company posted a revenue of 17 billion rupees and a massive profit of 3 billion rupees.
NewSpace has provided satellite launch service for 52 international customers.
More broadly, the Indian Industry is on track for significant growth. In 2020, the government eased rules for the private sector satellite and rocket companies allowing them to carry out independent space activities instead of being the solely being the suppliers to ISRO.
The reforms mean that the startups can also access ISRO facilities such as launchpads and laboratories. By 2025, the value of satellite services could come almost double $1 million.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) an Washington based think tank, India still has far to go before it catches China. As of March 2020, China owned 13.6% of all earth orbiting satellites compared to India’s 2.3%.
As per the Communist Party backed newspaper Global Times, in 2022, the Chinese conducted 64 launches. Most of China’s private companies in China are developing their rockets, a few of them though managed orbital launches on their own.
In March 2022, the Beijing based Startup Galaxy Space placed six communications satellites into low earth orbits and rival Galactic Energy, also headquartered in Beijing launched five more satellites in January.
By comparison, India manged five similar launches last year-all of them by ISRO and NewSpace. Only a few are planned for 2023.
According to Jonathan Mc Dowell, an astrophysicist at the centre for Astrophysics (Harvard and Smithsonian Institution), Indian rockets have suffered reliability issues in the past. The country’s success rate in recent years about 70% compares poorly to rates in the 90’s for rockets from US, China, Europe, Russia.
When choosing to launch in India, he said, “you are accepting a higher risk of failure”. But even with the backdrop, India is doing very well. The nation remains a popular choice for for cost efficient launches.
In 2013, India sent a an orbiter to Mars for a 10th of the price of a NASA probe that went same year. There are not many players that have a large capacity launch vehicle that is cheap. Mc Dowell said. “And that is not Russia or China.”
ISRO has earned $94 million in foreign exchange since January 2018 to November 22, 2023
From January 2018 to November 2022, ISRO has successfully launched 177 foreign satellites belonging to countries like Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UK and the US.
ISRO carried out two launches of its largest and heaviest rocket, in record time – on October 23, 2022, and on March 26, 2023. Both were commercial missions, where the LVM3 rocket ferried a total of 72 satellites of UK-based telecom firm One Web, thus earning ISRO a total revenue of more than Rs 1100cr or $137 million.
