|
Economic Highlights
New Delhi, 20 February, 2017
Giant ISRO Leap
EARN FOREX, HELP DIGITISATION
By Shivaji Sarkar
The world watches India’s meteoric scientific rise.
The scaling of heights by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) with
placing 104 satellites in space in a single mission is not just a record. It makes the country proud as it leads
the select space market.
“The entire ISRO team has done a wonderful job”, an elated
ISRO Chairman AS Kirankumar said soon after the launch on February 15. The move
instills hope for the development dream as digitisation can reach the remotest
area where internet penetration is the lowest. It is a scientific, business,
strategic and commercial success.
The ISRO is already an achiever flying the 39th
mission since 1993. It has outdone its own and global performance. It launched 20
satellites in one go in June, 2016. The record for the most satellites launched
in a single mission is 37 – by Russia
in 2014. About three years ago, a rocket carrying 104 tiny satellites, each no
bigger than a computer chip, by International Space Station failed.
The latest ISRO launch is significant as it put satellites
from seven countries with total payload of 1378 kg carried by the PSLV-C37. The
weight of the Cartosat-2 series satellite for earth observation is 714 kg. The Cartosat
2 is the primary passenger in this mission. It is used to produce
high-resolution images of the Indian landmass for applications like coastal
land use and regulation, rural and urban management, monitoring of road
networks or water pipelines and various kinds of land information systems. Last
year’s launch of 20 satellites in one go included a similar Cartosat-2 series
satellite. Four such satellites are already in space.
The ISRO has two technology demonstration nano satellites
INS 1 and 2 – the only Indian payloads. The rest were launches for
international customers through agreements with ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix
Corporation. It is becoming a large forex earner.
It has 96 private nano satellites from the US, including 88
weighing about 4.7 kg from the start-up Planet Labs, a San Fransisco-based
earth imaging company. These satellites will together preparer 50-trillion
pixel image every day for a variety of applications.
There is one satellite each from the Netherlands, Switzerland,
Israel, Kazakhstan and
the UAE. Except eight satellites all others are for commercial applications and
belong to private companies. Private satellites are still not allowed to offer
commercial applications in India.
This is likely to change.
The most difficult part of the mission was synchronous
release of the satellite payload from the final stage of the PSLV rocket. Each
rocket has to be released with small time lag so that they do not collide. At
the time of release, the satellites travel at more than 7.5 km per second.
The two ISRO –INS 1 and 2 – are carrying instruments from its
Space Application Centre (SAC) and Laboratory for Electro Optics Systems (LEOS)
for experiments. Till date the PSLV has put 226 satellites in space. Smaller
satellites like Cubesats of 10 sq cm each and weighing between 1kg and 10kg is
becoming the norm. This helps rockets carry more. The number of satellites to
be loaded is restricted only by space available and the carrying capacity of
the launch vehicle.
It requires engineering innovations. ISRO is seen as having
excelled in this. It helped India join the select 12 countries – Russia,
USA, France, Japan, China, UK, Ukraine, Israel, Iran, North Korea) and one
regional organization, the European Space Agency ( ESA), other than itself that
have independently launched satellites on their own indigenously
developed launch vehicles.
As business
proposition India is
becoming an attractive destination as European countries and the US also often
use Indian capabilities. Till
2016, ISRO had launched 75 foreign satellites, out of a total of 121. Forex
revenues of ISRO’s commercial arm, Antrix Corporation, rose 204.9 per cent in
2015 on the strength of foreign satellite launches. In 2015-16, commercial
launches brought in Rs 230 crore, which was 4 per cent of ISRO’s average
spending over the previous three years.
The low prices offered by ISRO are drawing foreign clients.
Private space programmes such as Arianespace and SpaceX are yet to equal its
cost-effectiveness. Besides, ISRO has a 100 per cent success rate in foreign
satellite launches. While a satellite launch on Arianespace’s rocket costs
about $100 million after subsidies, SpaceX charges $60 million. In contrast,
ISRO charges an average $3 million per satellite between 2013 and 2015.
So far, ISRO was on a marketing mission for creating a brand
for itself. It has largely achieved that. This may be ISRO’s moment for
revising its launch fee to spur the country’s space mission to empower its poor
people.
The Government is stated to be considering letting private
satellites operate from India.
Hughes Network, Team Indus, Bengaluru-based start-up Dhruva and others have filed
such proposals. Some of these are pending for years. The Narendra Modi Government
with its dynamic outlook is likely to take a favourable look.
One reason that delayed it was the Antrix-Devas controversy.
India lost the arbitration case in a Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA)
tribunal based in the Hague over its space marketing arm Antrix annulling a
contract with Bengaluru-based private multimedia firm Devas. In its audit, the CAG primarily calculated losses
(with some of its estimations going as high as Rs 2 lakh crores) in the
Antrix-Devas deal by comparing satellite spectrum and terrestrial/telecom
spectrum; which as a few analysts have
pointed out, is incorrect.
However, these issues certainly put off
liberating the space sector. It is inching towards a solution. With it, the Government
is likely to clear the way for a thriving sector that can earn enormous forex
through launching and managing private satellites.
The policy change is also likely to open up the digital
internet market. About 15 per cent of the terrain is difficult in India. It
becomes digitally unserviceable by broadband because the sheer economics does
not pay out. Satellite-based broadband not only can connect remote areas like
North-East, but other hilly and difficult terrains. This can earn the Government
revenue as well.
New technologies make such satellites, even by private
operators, inexpensive and help create intense and fast networking. Various
foreign and Indian companies are keen on it. The ISRO effort is likely to bring
in an inexpensive network and other facilities across the country, which will
go a long way in the development agenda. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
|
Archives 
