Chandrayaan-3 Touchdown: A Proud Moment For India, A Big Boost For Spacetech Startups

As the nation bursts with joy over the successful landing of Vikram Lander near the Moon’s south pole, too much has been left unsaid about the role of the Indian spacetech sector in this achievement.

However, before we delve deeper into how far Indian spacetech ventures have come in their quest to capture newer horizons, it is pertinent to mention that the nation’s space programmes have today evolved to a point that many nations can be seen gasping in awe of the country’s commitment.

Ever since the establishment of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1969, India has launched 424 foreign satellites and made significant strides in shoring up the local space ecosystem. 

The homegrown ‘space economy’ was pegged at an estimated INR 36,794 Cr in March last year, offering a glance into the charged-up spacetech economy.

Expected to become a $77 Bn market by 2030, the Indian spacetech industry’s biggest win has been in building a local ecosystem of players that have supported the indigenous effort to send a rover to the moon. Many homegrown startups have also contributed in their own way to the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. 

While Paras Defence supplied the navigation system for the spacecraft, MTAR Technologies manufactured the lander’s propulsion system. Ananth Technologies helped build the lander’s camera. Alongside, many others also put their resources behind the moon mission.

The Chandrayaan Stack

The story began with Chandrayaan-1, which was touted as India’s first deep space mission. Built for INR 386 Cr and launched in October 2008, the country’s first moon mission has many firsts to its credit, including discovering water on the surface of the moon. 

Catapulting India into the league of space superpowers, the mission not only achieved almost all key objectives of studying the moon but also offered the world a larger glimpse into the Moon and its topography. 

This paved the way for India’s second lunar mission called Chandrayaan-2, which consisted of three critical indigenously developed elements – a lunar orbiter, Vikram lander and Pragyan rover. Built at INR 978 Cr, Chandrayaan-2 landed short of a home run as it made a hard descent. It was supposed to study lunar topography, mineralogy, exosphere, and signatures of water ice.

However, the mission was a ‘partial’ failure as the lander and the rover crashed on the Moon’s surface during the early hours of September 7, 2019. 

While the first and the second missions were a decade apart, ISRO got back on its feet quickly, with the launch of Chandrayaan-3 within just four years. 

However, what has truly been the hallmark of ISRO across lunar missions is its cost-effective engineering. The newest lunar mission has been built at a cost of $75 Mn, much cheaper than Christoper Nolan’s space movie ‘Interstellar’, which was made with a budget of $165 Mn in 2018. Another space flick ‘Martian’, helmed by Ridley Scott, spent $108 Mn in 2017.

Comparisons aside, the biggest stride for the Indian space programme has been a wave of local startups that have mushroomed in the country in the past few years. The growing coverage of space events and ISRO opening up its infrastructure for local players have inspired and germinated an entire generation of startups that were non-existent two decades earlier. 

Indian Startups In The Space Race

While the ‘conservative space phase’ between 1990 and 2019 was marked by concerns around national security, the whiff of reforms changed the game entirely for the ecosystem in 2020. The Spacecom Policy of 2020 and the subsequent opening up of the space sector unlocked a plethora of opportunities for the homegrown ecosystem. 

Be it AgniKul building a proprietary small-lift launch vehicle or Bellatrix Aerospace advancing innovations in electric propulsion and orbital transfer vehicles, much seems to have happened on Indian grounds in recent years. Digantara’s in-situ space debris detector and Pixxel’s ambition of constructing a constellation of high-resolution hyperspectral earth imaging satellites have also not gone unnoticed. 

All of these startups seem to have adopted ISRO’s playbook, which is centred around cost-effective techniques and leverages the essence of patience to succeed. 

Instead of splurging big bucks on building expensive tech, Chandrayaan-3 employed a series of earth orbits and engine burns to increase the speed of the ‘space vehicle’ and positioned it for lunar insertion. This helped ISRO avoid making huge investments in building a more powerful launch vehicle with a higher payload. In contrast, the Apollo 11 mission, which had Neil Armstrong aboard as a passenger, opted for a Translunar Injection approach to reach the moon. The mission, between 1964 and 1973, had cost the US government a mammoth $6.4 Bn.

The Indian startups have learnt and copied ISRO’s frugal approach to build products out of India for the world. While this is just the tip of the iceberg, the lunar mission has prepared the homegrown startups for many bigger things.

What is interesting is that many of these startups are also increasingly hiring senior or retired ISRO employees to leverage the domain knowledge of these experts.

While more than 400 industries reportedly partnered with ISRO for various aspects of the mission, more than 20 startups actively participated by scaling up innovation and R&D to indigenous production of some critical components, culling dependence on imports. 

With cheaper and high-quality competitive products in their kitty, Indian startups have already started making inroads into global markets. The success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission will now help Indian startups attract more investments from global firms and forge deeper networks and partnerships. This will likely help Indian startups scale up their operations and optimise production with cost and quality being the primary drivers.

The role of the Indian government will be key here, as its support in the form of various production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes has the potential to establish India as the world’s spacetech hub.

Bigger Trajectories To Jump

While the potential seems unlimited, Indian spacetech startups also face multiple challenges. Western countries continue to be the powerhouse of various segments of the global spacetech race. From Elon Musk-led SpaceX to Leo to Astra, the US and Europe continue to lead the sector while Indian spacetech startups look to catch up to them.

Scaling production and footprints also seem to be a cumbersome task, owing to multiple jurisdictional regulations involving the space. What has also impeded the growth of the spacetech sector is challenges related to the availability of seed stage investment as spacetech and allied deeptech products take a long time to build.

This risk-infested long development cycle, continuous testing mandates, and heavy utilisation of expensive resources pose a major challenge to the growth of spacetech startups in the country. However, the major issue seems to be the lack of testing infrastructure in the country. This infrastructure is currently almost exclusively based out of the facilities of ISRO and other governmental institutions. 

Another major issue seems to be the paucity of high-quality talent. As more and more startups join the fray, talent wars could burn a bigger hole in the pockets of many budding players in the domain. 

Despite the hurdles, nothing seems to be stopping ISRO and homegrown spacetech players from further experimentation as they look to solidify their credentials globally. 

The data collected from the Chandrayaan-3 mission is expected to help ISRO gather a deeper understanding of the Earth’s satellite (Moon) and may even pave the way for startups to access this treasure trove of data in the future as the government looks to enable easy availability of valuable geospatial information. 

Despite the funding winter gripping the Indian startup ecosystem, homegrown spacetech players have more or less proven immune and have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in the past year. Even with funding downcycle, innovation seems to know no bounds, and it is this thesis that the growing spacetech players in the country are banking on.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.