India’s human spaceflight programme has progressed steadily in the last ten years. Call it the compounding effect of ISRO’s brick-by-brick efforts over the past five decades. Also, due credit must be given to the Prime Minister’s Office which brought about an enormous evolution in the space programme and has been unabashedly bullish about taking common Indians into space. This was even when the other side was content with Indian commoners glorified to Oscars as slum-dwellers. With the cabinet clearance for the Bharatiya Antariksh Station, our very own space station to be placed in the low-Earth orbit, India is entering into a haloed league of only four countries, the other three being the US, Russia, and China. But then, we have a long way to go and lots to do.
Let me share with you a story of two “axioms”—’Axiom Research Labs’, more famously known as Team Indus, a startup that was established in 2010 in Bengaluru, and ‘Axiom Space’, now a major American space company, founded in 2016 in Houston. Both companies are connected to India-United States (US) space collaboration. The Indian Axiom was supposed to attempt India’s first landing on the Moon. However, due to the scarcity of domestic opportunities for commercial space ventures, it eventually went for the greener commercial pastures in the US in 2017. The American axiom was best placed where it was formed. It was brought to life by American and international talent drawn to the maturing commercial space landscape in the US. An examination of the narratives and destinies of these two entities is necessary, especially as India approaches a significant milestone in its human spaceflight diplomacy.
Today, American Axiom Space is the same company that will ferry the first Indian astronaut―Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, with Group Captain Prasanth Nair as the reserve candidate - to visit the International Space Station. This ferry arrangement was made possible through an agreement between ISRO and NASA. India is not a member of the International Space Station. However, all ISRO and Indian astronauts’ learnings will help with the setting of the Bharatiya Antriksh Station. There will be a time, in the next 15 years, when the Indian national station will coexist with the Chinese space station and America’s one or at most two commercial space stations. That makes India an extremely crucial player in the world’s human spaceflight endeavours, including the efforts to take humans back to the Moon.
The US is one of many countries that assisted in our early human spaceflight steps. The French helped us with their superior space medicine knowledge, which is crucial for astronaut health. The Russians have trained our astronauts at their Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and their experience using their experience. Partnerships with different space agencies are only going to help us. They are reason enough that India needs to boldly exercise its autonomy to decide who it wants to partner with. But this is not it. What have we learnt from the two axioms? Why do Indian companies, for the lack of domestic business opportunities and business sustenance, move overseas in the name of international markets? Is there a chance that this ‘startup drain’ akin to ‘brain drain’ will stop plaguing us?
To prevent the startup drain and ensure that no other Team Indus fades into obscurity, India must increase industry and startup participation in mission design. Yes, ISRO will lead these missions scientifically, collaborating with different academic institutions. Industry, too, will help build the space station, but that is not enough. India will only be able to accomplish the greater socio-economic benefit of raising a space station if the Bharatiya Antariksh Station becomes an enabler of new science and a provider of business opportunities for the private space sector. New science can happen if new commercially crucial R&D experiments are carried out on the space station, with the BAS seeking rentals for the duration they are hosted. The new science can happen if there is continuous commercial supply of logistics and crew to the space station and back. The new science can happen only if the space station results in a bevy of cargo and human missions to the Moon, with the majority of hardware and software contributed by corporate R&D.
The Bharatiya Antariksh Station will be the nation’s asset and will be operated by the Indian military, ISRO, scientific institutions, and private industries. These four will have to handhold each other as they build and commercially-run the station. It is their synergy that will help prepare the first Indians to land on the Moon to set up commercial R&D bases on the Moon. India must ensure that it keeps engaging its startups and private companies, which are the cornerstone of the four-way partnerships. Without them, the entire Indian space programme may not be sustained beyond a certain point; however, good ISRO is at its tasks.
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