According to a representative of the US Embassy in New Delhi, the Indian Space Program began in 1963 with the launch of the US-made Nike-Apache sounding rocket. Since then, India and the US have worked together on moon missions, human spaceflight, and a variety of other projects.
IIT Madras and the Indian Space Association organised an event in Chennai titled ‘Space Technology: The Next Business Frontier,’ where Drew Schufletowski, Minister Counselor for Economic, Environment, Science, and Technology Affairs, U.S. Embassy, New Delhi, spoke to attendees (ISpA).
‘The greatest growth potential in our space relationship, and those of other Indo-Pacific partners, involve the private sector. India’s space sector is undergoing a transformation with private companies taking on a more influential role in both design and production of launch vehicles, satellites, ground stations, and other elements at the heart of space exploration and applications’ he said.
Minister Counselor Schufletowski continued, ‘Indian companies are currently developing their own constellations of earth observation satellites and developing compact launch vehicles to put them into low-Earth orbit. Through partnerships in trade, investment, and technological cooperation, space enterprises in the US and the Indo-Pacific may strengthen this commercial sector momentum.’
He discussed the continuing NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) research and explained that the $1.5 billion project’s goal was to see and measure some of the planet’s most intricate processes. He further stated that a significantly larger portion of the world’s space economy was about to be captured by the Indian commercial space sector. India currently accounts for 2% of the $469 billion global space industry.
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