Share risks, ISRO tells industry

The private sector must share some of the risks as the Indian space programme expands and gets onto the fast-track, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said here today. The private sector, according to ISRO, already accounts for 60 per cent of India’s space programme.

ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan called on industry to become a risk-sharing partner in the coming years to add strength to both parties. He said this in his keynote address at the Bengaluru Space Expo 2010 here, a four-day exhibition focusing on space, satellites and its technologies.

“The overall quality of industry will improve. It is mutually beneficial. We should take it up in the right earnest,” Radhakrishnan said. ISRO and industry can leverage on each other’s strengths, with the industry providing sub-assemblies and large systems for rockets, other space programmes and the ground segment, he added.

He said about 500 large, medium, small and micro firms participate in the space programme. ISRO, along with the private sector will invest, and they will do business and they will take risks like any business, said K R Sridhara Murthi, MD, Antrix Corporation, ISRO’s marketing arm. He added that space industry is a risky business with long gestation periods.

He called on industry to develop systems for low-cost options which will leverage on indigenous technologies and the available human resources skills and the space heritage. “They can integrate with global industries to realise the benefits of consolidation and integration,” Murthi added.

Vikram Kirloskar, chairman of CII’s National Committee on Technology, said industry is looking to deepen participation in the space programme, but added a caveat that security and defence issues need to be addressed while involving the private sector.

Mohammed Abubakar, Nigeria’s Science and Technology Minister, said his country was keen to partner ISRO in the field while citing the numerous efforts of Nigeria to benefit from space science.