Startups to play major role in boosting India’s presence in global space economy: IN-SPACe chairperson Pawan Goenka

Goenka was addressing delegates virtually at the launch of the Indian Space Association, a grouping of space and satellite companies on Monday. IN-SPACe is a central regulatory body mandated to attract private capital in the space sector and create a level-playing field for private sector companies.

Goenka underlined the need to “triple the number of rocket launches in India from the current 4-to-5 per year level,” and added that going forward “local tech startups would play a major role in developing/designing multiple downstream applications” in the space technologies realm.

Going forward, he said Isro and IN-SPACe would work closely with local startups operating in the space and satellite tech segment to boost India’s share of the global space economy.

Last month, Goenka, a former managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra, was named chairperson of IN-SPACe.

Formed last year, IN-SPACe will act as a regulator whose rulings would be bound by both the space agency as well as private firms in the country. In-Space will have members from the academia, government as well as industry representatives on its board and will be under the Space Commission.