Saraswat said India’s effort is to capture a larger share of the global space economy and that its space missions have one key goal—unlocking access to critical minerals. According to information available from InvestIndia, a state agency facilitating investments, India’s space sector, which was at 2-3% or $9.6 billion of the global space economy in 2020 is set to reach up to 10% by 2030.

The new era of space—the unfolding of Space 4.0, which all nations want to be part of—offers a market, Saraswat said, adding that this justifies India’s efforts to capture at least 10% of that market.

“I am quite certain that the future programmes India is planning to do, for example, the Gaganyaan (manned space mission), the mission to Venus and the mission to Mars will all certainly have a huge participation of the private sector by way of supply of sub-systems, components and devices, and also they may become joint partners in some of the major launches which are precursors to this,” said Saraswat.

He also defended the government’s introduction of a licence regime for importing laptops, saying local production of laptops for domestic consumption and exports will offer gains to the economy compared to importing computers, which only benefits overseas exporters to India.

The former chief of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said with the completely indigenous Chandrayaan-3 landing on the south pole of the moon, India has emerged as a very strong and self-reliant space power. “It is a technological feat that India has achieved. A mission of this kind has tremendous impact as far as the nation’s psyche is concerned, particularly the industry, the startups and the academia,” he said, adding the current euphoria over the moon mission will certainly excite generations of students, startups and industries.

He said private companies have already been participating in the development of various systems, sub-systems, components and now, even some of the fully integrated vehicles. This, of course, is the result of the space policy the government enunciated about two years ago, when it opened up the space sector to private enterprises, he said.

That has led to the emergence of several private companies to work in the areas of satellites, launch vehicles and subsystems for space technologies, to the extent that currently, there are companies that are willing to design rocket engines. There are also companies which make nano satellites, mini satellites, micro satellites and use the vehicles of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) for launching them into space, he said.

Saraswat rejected the notion that China’s space programme is ahead of India. “I want to tell you, as far as space technology is concerned, today, I think we are at par with the best in the world. Only thing is our scale has to be increased, nothing else. Succeeding in Gaganyaan, the mission sending man to space, would be the next major achievement for us,” he said, explaining that it will open up further possibilities of having a space station or deep space probes.

“That is the only area where we need to now demonstrate. For launching, we have got the biggest launch vehicle today available, which is equivalent to the best in the world today. We can go to 5 tons of payload,” Saraswat said, adding that India is capable of building all kinds of satellites for defence and civil applications.

Saraswat said the plan to licence imports of laptops and tablets was to promote domestic production. “Today if you see, 95% of the laptops or desktops come from outside. Whatever is being manufactured in India has very poor value addition. Some of them are assembled in India with 90% systems coming from outside. So, there is very little value addition. So, there is no gain to the country, whereas our market is very big today,” Saraswat said, adding that with the kind of a domestic market India has, exporters to India are benefiting while India is losing the opportunity to earn foreign exchange.

Updated: 30 Aug 2023, 12:05 AM IST