The Rise of India's Private Space Firms | Momentum

India's Chandrayaan-3 Mission and Space Ambitions

• India has joined the global space race with its Chandrayaan-3 mission, the first in the world to land near the rugged South Pole of the moon, a region believed to hold valuable resources like ice water, at a cost of less than $75 million (30s).
• The country is planning human spaceflight missions and its own space station next, following its recent successes (51s).
• India's space ambitions began as a way of boosting its economy when the country was newly independent, with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) founded in 1969 (1m34s).
• ISRO's priority was developing space programs that would benefit India's people in their day-to-day lives, such as communications and meteorology, with its first satellite, Aryabhata, launched in 1975 (1m47s).

Early Space Programs and Lunar Missions

• In the late 1990s and early 2000s, ISRO began work on moon missions, influenced by China's space programs, and launched its first lunar space probe, Chandrayaan-1, in 2008 (2m18s).
• India's space ambitions are being achieved on a shoestring budget, with a focus on agility, a different design approach, and a "startup approach" to problem-solving (4m8s).
• The Indian Space Agency has a bootstrapping mentality, which allows it to stretch its space budgets, with ISRO given $1.5 billion for space missions in 2023, a fraction of NASA's and China's space budgets (4m52s).
• India's space program is driven by strong government support, an agile design process, and a focus on achieving results quickly and efficiently (4m38s).

The Importance of Space Programs and Geopolitics

• A country with a space program does so because space enables various activities on Earth, such as agriculture, resource management, urban planning, security, and defense, making it a necessity for a subcontinent like India with 1.4 billion people (5m22s).
• India's space capabilities have grown, and its space goals have expanded to developing satellites for military purposes, with a strategic autonomy in terms of homeland security and defense (6m14s).
• Everything in space is geopolitics, and India's aspirations can be seen as a counter to China's space programs, but India is not directly mapping itself onto China (6m26s).
• China is considered the new superpower, having already overtaken the United States in some ways, but India has its own constellation of navigation satellites, Comsat, and Earth observation satellites (6m37s).

India's Private Space Sector and Startups

• India's private space sector is nascent but has come a long way, with two kinds of companies: legacy companies like Godrej, Tata Advanced Materials, HAL, and Taneja Aerospace, and new space companies or startups (7m16s).
• The startups are adding to the momentum built over the last 50-odd years, and the momentum of India's space tech development has quickened as the industry opened up to private companies and foreign investment (8m5s).
• The global space market is worth an estimated $440 billion, with India's share being a mere 2%, and since the private space sector in India opened up, hundreds of startups have sprung up to vie for a slice of the pie (8m34s).

Skyroot: Affordable and Reliable Spaceflight

• Indian space startups like Skyroot aim to make spaceflight affordable, reliable, and regular, and have achieved significant milestones, such as launching India's first private rocket, Vikram-S, in 2022 (9m8s).
• Vikram-S is significant because it was done in record time and was India's and South Asia's first rocket to successfully reach space at the very first attempt, showcasing the potential of the Indian space sector (9m31s).
• The mission of Skyroot is to open space for all, as space transforms human lives through GPS communication and Earth observation, but currently, access to space is very expensive and limited to a few, requiring democratization of space (10m10s).
• Skyroot has made progress by launching the first rocket mission in India's and South Asia's private sector in 2022 and plans to launch satellites to orbit, and eventually, humans and cargo to space (10m35s).
• The company is using advanced materials like carbon fiber, which is super light, to build its rockets, allowing for more payload to be carried to space, and 3D printing to manufacture and test rocket engines in just a few days (10m49s).
• Skyroot's cost-effectiveness is attributed to its DNA, which includes innovation, reliability, and a mindset of efficiency, utilizing less resources and being more resourceful (11m22s).
• The global space launch market is projected to hit $47 billion by 2032, and Indian companies like Skyroot need to innovate and be resourceful to compete, with the demand for satellite launches growing rapidly (11m50s).
• Skyroot aims to be one of the top players in the world, growing the space economy, but needs to demonstrate orbital launch capabilities to compete with American and Chinese space companies (12m27s).
• The company plans to start launching customer payloads to orbit, making more launches sustainable, and potentially going profitable in the next few years, with the goal of launching bigger satellites, cargo, and humans to space (12m48s).
• Skyroot is starting with smaller vehicles to launch small satellites, using a seven-story building tall rocket with a core structure built in-house and a support system of hundreds of suppliers (13m11s).
• The ultimate goal is to build rockets that are so cheap, they should be like aircraft, to truly open space for all (13m24s).
• The goal is to make going to space as easy as taking a flight, with the ability to reuse rockets, but currently, SpaceX is the cheapest option and rules the rocket industry (13m30s).
• Indian startups can compete by offering a different solution, such as being "cabs to go to space" that can launch smaller payloads to specific locations, aiming to be the most competitive player in that segment (13m55s).
• To achieve this, the mantra is to build fast, test faster, and ensure suppliers adhere to this mantra, with a strong quality team and hand-holding suppliers due to the unforgiving nature of space (14m21s).

Growth of India's Space Sector and Talent

• The exponential growth in India's space sector is expected to be driven by lower costs and wider access to technologies, with potential for extraordinary growth over the years (14m47s).
• This growth is expected to lead to low-cost internet for 50% of the world population through broadband internet directly from satellites in the next decade (15m9s).
• India has extraordinary talent, with 15 million engineers passing out of Indian colleges every year, which can be tapped for the space industry (15m26s).
• The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIAP) plays a crucial role in developing talent for the future by providing a bridge to transfer knowledge to the student community and supporting student programs (16m7s).
• The IIAP also supports Indian space startups in designing, developing, testing, and placing their payloads on satellite launch vehicles, contributing to India's space tech development (16m30s).

Pixxel: Hyperspectral Imaging for a Healthier Planet

• The collaboration between academia, industry, and research institutions provides fuel for India's space tech development to accelerate, as seen in the example of Bengaluru-based space data company Pixxel (16m40s).
• Pixxel, a five-year-old startup, builds hyperspectral imaging satellites that can monitor the health of the planet above and below the Earth's surface, and is launching a new satellite called Firefly later this year (17m9s).
• Firefly's cameras capture and split light into more than 250 bands, far beyond those typically observed by conventional satellite imaging systems, allowing customers to benefit from detailed data on soil health, crop species, and disease or pest infestation (17m41s).
• Pixxel aims to create a health monitor for the planet using hyperspectral imaging satellites to track changes and provide insights for various industries, including farming and oil and gas (18m31s).
• The idea for Pixxel originated from analyzing existing satellite data, which had limitations in detecting crop diseases and pest infestations, resulting in significant crop losses worth half a trillion dollars annually (18m43s).
• NASA's previous mission proved the usefulness of hyperspectral imaging, but there was a vacuum in the market due to the high cost and limited resolution of the technology (19m24s).
• Private entities like Pixxel are working to commercialize hyperspectral imaging by improving resolution and reducing costs, with the goal of deploying a constellation of satellites (19m15s).
• Pixxel has raised over $71 million in funding and works with various industries, including oil and gas companies to monitor environmental impact, governments to track deforestation, and carbon credits to identify carbon sequestration (20m28s).
• The company's hyperspectral imaging technology can detect underground oil leaks by analyzing changes in soil chemical composition and track deforestation by identifying areas with high carbon sequestration (20m42s).
• In the future, satellite imaging is expected to benefit the world by providing easily accessible data, allowing users to simply type in a query, such as the water quality index for lakes in Bangalore, and receive a report with the necessary information (21m20s).
• The goal is to democratize access to this data, making it available to anyone in the world through an app, which would lead to a more transparent and information-led world (21m42s).

Future of India's Space Sector and Global Impact

• Companies like Pixxel are advancing India's space ambitions, with the country being a new player in the private space sector, which has only opened up in the last 3-4 years (21m59s).
• Most Indian space startups, including Pixxel, are relatively young, with many employees under the age of 30, and are working on innovative technologies such as 3D printed rocket engines and hyperspectral satellites (22m19s).
• India's space sector is expected to grow, driven by a young and skilled population, government reforms, and new startups, which could help the country become a bigger player in the global space economy, estimated to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035 (22m55s).
• India's space ambitions are increasing, with each mission enhancing its reputation in the global space industry (23m21s).