Space-tech And Government Policies: Are They Orbiting Well?

The Draft National Space Transportation Policy, 2020 has been unveiled earlier this month. This policy will allow private space technology companies to build or lease launch pads for the purpose of launching their rockets into space. They can use their own land and sea-mobile  launchers, besides experimenting with launching satellites mid-air.

It is noteworthy that the government has opened the space-tech sector to private players as recently as 2020. Collaboration and partnership between ISRO, private players, and international players are some of the main reasons behind opening this sector. To fuel its own efforts, government also dedicated platform named ‘Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre’ (IN-SPACe) to give more freedom under government oversight to private sector innovation in space-tech. The main question is, how are space-tech companies viewing the government intervention?

Yashas Karanam, COO, Co-founder, Bellatrix lauds this move of the government “This is a welcome move from all space-tech companies in the country. Till that point we did not have any clarity on whether a company like us or a company like Agnikul, Skyroot or Pixell who are out there in the market whether we could exist. Whether an Indian company can build its own satellite and launch it to space, whether that is permitted or not”.

Image source: PIB Twitter

As a part of the new reforms, private players will be allowed to carry out end-to-end activities such as providing space-based services, designing satellites, and launch vehicles using a suitable enabling mechanism, thereby enabling ISRO to focus on advanced research. For example, space-tech start-up Bellatrix had recently successfully tested India’s first privately built Hall Thruster.

This will be used to propel micro-satellites weighing between 50-500 kg and can be scaled up for other, heavier satellites. Karanam further adds, “Today we spend 10 Million USD launching a first class satellite, tomorrow if we launch it and get a notice saying that was not legal, there were no rules to launch your own satellite then we are committing a 10 Million USD crime! It is only with space policies that government opened last year that space companies are authorised to do it.” Clearly the government intervention is viewed positively by the oldest start-up player in the space sector.