Datanomics: Hits and misses as India celebrates Space Day on August 23

India will celebrate its second National Space Day on August 23, marking the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon’s south pole. In 2024, India ranked eighth globally in space capital expenditure, trailing not just bigger economies such as the US, China, Germany, and Japan, but also France, Russia, and Italy. However, the gap is not insurmountable to fill. India’s space spending stood at 0.05 per cent of GDP, compared with 0.27 per cent in the US, 0.17 per cent in Japan, and 0.18  per cent in Russia.  

Space research capex yet to hit pre-Covid level 

India’s capital expenditure on space research rose to ₹7,181 crore in the financial year 2019-20 (FY20) from ₹3,587 crore in FY17, before declining to ₹ 4,253 crore in FY23. It is budgeted to recover to ₹6,103 crore in FY26. 

 

 

Most of the budget goes to the tech dept  

The largest share of India’s space Budget continues to go towards developing space technology. 

 

 

Lack of funding utilisation in space projects 

Among Isro’s top 10 ongoing projects, the Gaganyaan follow-on missions have been allocated the highest sum, but only 22 per cent of this amount has been utilised.