Five, four, three, two, one, zero. In 2019, millions of Indias watched on as their nation launched
its most ambitious lunar mission to date. Over $80 million had been spent and the nation's pride was
on display and on the line. Narendra Modi, India's Prime Minister watched from mission
control as the lunar lander made its final heart-stopping descent. Then communication was lost. The lander had crashed
into the lunar surface. The encouragement and solidarity of Prime Minister Modi. Despite the failure, this mission signaled a new direction for India's
space agency, the ISRO. Through the 90's it had created arguably the world's most cost
effective space program. With NASA, it was about
pushing the boundaries of innovation, sending hardware
to areas in the solar system or in the universe that
weren't sent before. Within India, it was about
setting up infrastructure that could support the country. Over the last decade India has ripped up it's old rule book and launched missions to Mars and the Moon. The early ambition of helping
its people is now extending to leading the world. Our current prime minister, Mr. Modi, he does see space as a strategic sector. Historically, India has not competed with the mega budget and ambitions of the great space faring
nations, but that's changed. India now wants to take its
next giant leap into space. India's space story stands apart from the space pioneering nations. In July 1980, over two
decades after Sputnik, India launched its Rohini satellite. Making them the newest
member of an exclusive club. But the Indian Space Research Organization was trying to do things differently. Unlike NASA or the Soviet space program which aimed to explore
space for grand, national and scientific ambitions,
the ISRO was tasked with creating an
indigenous space programme solely to allow India to access the practical advantages of space. India has always maintained
that India wants space science to be developed for
betterment of its people. If you look at it for
telecommunications, for electronics, India has used space
technology for all of that. I would say the first 20 odd years, the focus was on technology independence. How do you build your own satellites, your own earth stations? How do you launch your own satellites, which means you have to build rockets? By 1994, India had its
own liquid stages rocket the Polar Satellite
Launch Vehicle or PSLV. Early 2000s to late 2010s is
when PSLV started becoming the workhorse for the world. People could come here to be
able to launch their satellites for a much more cost-effective manner and without compromising on quality. That changing of building
hardware only for the country to then providing these services globally, I think started the
beginning of the century and PSLV was a very critical cog in that. From 1994 to 2017, the rocket launched 48 Indian satellites and 209 satellites from customers abroad. The ISRO had carved out its
own place in the space sector. It was the reliable and cost efficient way to put a satellite into orbit. Launch costs are measured
by how much you pay to get one kilogram into orbit. In the mid 90's, India's PSLV
rocket was the cheapest way to get hardware into space. It cost around $8,500 per kilogram. That compares to NASA's
Atlas II rocket which cost around $18,700 per kilogram. Fast forward to now and SpaceX will get you into low orbit for a fraction of that cost. ISRO has already acknowledged
that the technologies that are being developed by
Elon Musk could be a threat to their business. India's competition is rising. There are billionaires
entering into the field. For India to maintain
the dominant position, the country needs to step up further. And that step up for India could be its new Small Satellite Launch Vehicle. It will have a payload of 500 kg and deliver multiple
satellites in one mission. But this new rocket may not be enough. The ISRO is also developing a
reusable rocket like SpaceX's but the timeline on that is less clear. In the meantime, India
has signaled its intent to fundamentally reset its space program. We focused on technology independence. Which was essential for
the last several decades. Now we need to look outwards and look far. Susmita Mohanty has over
two decades experience in the space industry and co-founded India's first private space
start-up, Earth2Orbit in 2009. She now runs a space thinktank. We were sort of at the crossroads and India started thinking what next? We can build our own stuff. We can launch our own satellites. We use our satellites for
a variety of applications. So I think planetary exploration was sort of the natural next step if you ask me. Susmita's thinktank, Spaceport Sarabhai, aims to help private
companies engage with the ISRO as well as promote
India's space technology. We would like to give
India an international voice, especially when it comes
to space law and policy, as it relates to the space environment, space resource mining, in orbit repair and the kind of lower economy
that's starting to emerge. We would also like to provide
guidance to the government on policy matters, using solid research and
stakeholder feedback. India's shift from practical space program to exploration hinges on the
belief that private companies and private money will take over. India just doesn't have the budget to spend on these things. And private investment
can really come in handy. The current government
has always maintained that there's no reason for a
government to be in business. And when you look at space as a business, like we have seen in
the U.S. or in Europe, the moment you look at space as a business and not just as a strategic asset, that's when you encourage
private companies to pump in more money. It's not really new for private companies to invest in Indian space technology. Some of the private suppliers
have already supplied to ISRO, but now the government is opening up. We are seeing private satellite players, private launch players. So that's something new and fresh, which is being welcomed by every party. One of those new players is Pixxel. Based in Bangalore since 2019, they make satellite hardware and software. We fit in the new mould of companies that are operating
independently without having to depend on government
support, but work hand in hand to make sure that whatever
heritage that the country has had can now be taken to global stages as well. We're building a constellation of the world's first
hyperspectral imaging satellites that will provide a much more
detailed view of our planet than has been possible. The constellation will be
global and it will provide data on a daily basis as well. On the software side of
things, we take this data and we build the tools
that will enable extraction of insights such as in
prediction, soil, health, how's the pollution happening? Pixxel is part of a new crop of startups vying for ISRO contracts. Historically, it's been very
difficult for smaller companies to win big state deals. But that's changing. ISRO has done all that is needed in terms of indigenous capability. Now it's the responsibility
of the private sector to take those up, whether
it's communication Earth observation, GPS and
whatnot, and build on top of that. That leaves space agencies
to do cutting edge work that only governments
are willing to spend, a private company can never
spend billions of dollars on something that is
only for purely research and scientific perspective. This shift in Indian space policy is been driven by Prime
Minster Modi himself. He has encouraged India's space ambitions to be a source of national pride. He does see space as a strategic sector, both from an economy point of
view and a geopolitical tool. He wants the country to sort of progress towards a $5 trillion economy. So space can play a very big role, both in terms of products and services. As a politician, he knows how
space can strategically help when it comes to war deterrence. Space can play a role there
and also a role in diplomacy. So I think he uses both facets of space. But while the government
is drumming up support critics point out the
contradiction that upwards of 360 million Indians live in poverty. India is a developing country
that runs a fiscal deficit, that runs a budget deficit. So the amount of money you
put into the space budget is going to be always under scrutiny for a country that doesn't
have enough toilets for its own people. Do you really want to spend
money on space technology? And the government does
have a tough time at times to convince people why
space technology is needed. But at the same time, there
are some big advocates for it. I don't think it's an either or situation it's that if we spend
on space doesn't mean you're not spending anything
on making other things better. I'll just take an example. Schools in India are spread apart. Some of them don't have
connectivity to fiber optics. They don't have connectivity
to any kind of internet. When India launched its indigenous
communication satellite, a lot of these schools
were able to come online and be connected with
what the other regions of the country were doing
just from the fact that there were a few communications satellites that were sent up that
enable that connectivity. Because getting the other infrastructure from a wide perspective
was simply not possible. India's spending needs to be put in perspective. The U.S. remains the
undisputed big spender, accounting for 58% of
the world's space budget, with $47.7 billion spent in 2020. China, which has significantly
increased its spending, takes second with $8.9 billion. In 2020, India spent just over $2 billion. What the ISRO and India's
space sector is most proud of is what they have achieved with so little. If you look at the budget
for India's space missions to the moon and to Mars, you
realize that they actually cost a fraction of what it costs to make a Hollywood movie on space. India's first Mars mission, cost less than the film "The Martian". India got it's satellite to
the red planet for $74 million. $20 million dollar less than
the budget for the film. Then when you compare their
mission to other nations, the contrast is even starker. NASA's Mars satellite,
Maven, cost $651 million, that's more than eight times
the cost of the Indian mission. But being frugal may not be
sustainable or desirable. I think budget constraints
can be a good thing, but it can also be a limiting factor. So if you have budget
constraints, it invariably helps you do things using
methods of frugal engineering, but that's not always good
when you look at the market and the economy. In the sense, if I want to go
and compete internationally, I'm a company in Bangalore. I would want the kind of capital that a company in California has to be able to compete internationally. So I think we should not
stop at frugal engineering. India is looking at space,
not just as a strategic asset, but also as sort of a source
of future profitability. If you look at the likes of
what Elon Musk are doing, they're trying to colonize other
planets and any country, any company, any individual
that does it first, will have a big first mover advantage. I think in order to make space exploration in the coming half century be
more humanistic and inclusive geographically speaking,
racially, ethnically, is going to be a huge challenge
because a lot of the money rests in a certain part of the world, it would end up being
an expedition of sorts where you would only have
the wealthy participate, leaving behind a large
section of the earth, it's not going to look very pretty. In 1990, Asia nations represented only 9% of global space spending,
now it's 19% and rising. India is determined to be
a leader not a follower in the new space race.
