ISRO set to provide more opportunities for pvt cos

Bengaluru: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) intends to offload most of its space- related activities to industry and enhance focus on advanced research, its Chairman K Sivan has said, as the government opens up the sector to get private players onboard. Sivan, also Secretary in the Department of Space (DoS), said the reforms initiated in the sector by the government in June last year to promote enhanced private participation in the space domain has generated enthusiasm among the industry.

"Future of space activities is now changing. Otherwise (earlier), all the space activities were done by only ISRO. Now, we are giving equal opportunity to private players to also do it", he said. Sivan was addressing a webinar organised by the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) on "Future of Aerospace & Avionics in India". He said ISRO can share its technologies with private players and is giving them opportunity to utilise its facilities.

"We want to hand-hold them to bring them to our (ISRO's) level so that most of activities that ISRO is doing can be offloaded to industry and we can spend more time on advanced research to take India to the next level (in the space sector), he said.

As part of space reforms for "Unlocking the space potential of India" to enable private players to carry out end-to-end space activities, the establishment of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN- SPACe) has also been announced.

An autonomous body under the DoS, IN-SPACe acts as a single window nodal agency for enabling and regulating space activities and usage of ISRO facilities by NGPEs (non- government private entities).