Indian Space Association

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – The Indian Space Association (ISpA) was formally launched Monday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Concept –

It is an industry body representing the various stakeholders in the Indian space domain with members comprising the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Bharti Airtel, OneWeb, Tata Group’s Nelco, L&T, MapMyIndia among others.
Along the lines of the US, now several private sector companies both global and domestic have taken interest in India’s space domain, with space-based communication networks coming to the fore.

How are space-based communications network growing?

Several Indian and international companies have bet on satellite communications as the next frontier to provide internet connectivity at the retail level.
This includes SpaceX’s StarLink, Sunil Bharti Mittal’s OneWeb, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, US satellite maker Hughes Communications, etc.
OneWeb, for example, is building its initial constellation of 648 low-earth orbit satellites and has already put 322 satellites into orbit.
- Its services are expected to begin this year to the Arctic region including Alaska, Canada, and the UK.
- By late 2022, OneWeb will offer its high-speed, low latency connectivity services in India and the rest of the world.

Why is satellite internet important?

Industry experts suggest that satellite internet will be essential for broadband inclusion in remote areas and sparsely populated locations where terrestrial networks have not reached.
As of now, however, satellite communications remains limited to use by corporates and institutions that use it for emergency use, critical trans-continental communications and for connecting to remote areas with no connectivity.
As of August this year, India had only 3 lakh satellite communications customers, compared with 45 lakh in the US and 21 lakh in the European Union.

To know more about Indian Space Association (ISpA), please click here.

Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe)

IN-SPACE will be a separate vertical within the Department of Space (DoS) that will make independent decisions for permitting and regulating activities of the private sector.
It will have its own legal, technological, activity promotion and monitoring directorates and its Board will comprise members from the private industry, academia and government of India
It will act as a national nodal agency for hand-holding and promoting private industry in the space sector and will even help private players build facilities within DoS premises

New Space India Limited

NSIL is a Central Public Sector Enterprise of the Government of India.
It was established in 2019 under the administrative control of the Department of Space.
Headquarter: Bengaluru
NSIL is the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) with the primary responsibility of enabling Indian industries to take up high technology space related activities and is also responsible for promotion and commercial exploitation of the products and services emanating from the space industry.
- The new company will also look after the production and marketing of space-based products and services, including launch and application, developed by ISRO centres and the constituent units of the Department of Space and marketing spin-off technologies and products and services both in India and abroad.
The functions of NSIL will involve:
- small satellite technology transfer to industry,
- manufacturing of Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) — a product which is being developed by the ISRO — in collaboration with the private sector and
- production of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
NSIL differs from ISRO’s existing commercial arm Antrix Corporation:
- Antrix will handle ISRO’s commercial deals for satellites and launch vehicles with foreign customers.
- NSIL will deal with capacity building of local industry for space manufacturing.