Spy satellites next frontier for India's spacetech startups

India's bet to open spacetech to private companies five years ago has spawned startups that are already earning millions of dollars by sharing agriculture and climate data collected by the satellites they launched.

- Shouvik Das

India's space revenue may hit $44 billion in 8 years. istockphoto

(istockphoto)

These ventures are pivoting towards a new lucrative business: defence surveillance. Google-backed satellite imaging startup Pixxel and its crosstown peer Digantara target at least half of their business by launching satellites for defence forces in India and overseas, according to their top executives. Even rocket builder Skyroot Aerospace and multiple smaller startups hope to tap such contracts.

India's private space economy revenue is expected to surge more than fivefold over the next eight years from $8.5 billion to $44 billion, growing at an annualized rate of 23%, according to data from Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (In-Space). While this growth has failed to materialize so far, analysts said the next three years will be crucial.

Engineering satellites and rockets often takes years and millions of dollars in revenue to get right. While state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has a favourable global reputation, private space startups can't simply piggyback on Isro. They will have to prove their products in space, industry stakeholders said.

"Chasing commercial contracts will be a path to much slower growth and practical revenue streams," said Chaitanya Giri, space fellow at policy think-tank, Observer Research Foundation. “Instead, most space firms should either focus on defence contracts, diversify their businesses worldwide, or set up completely independent entities that would solely focus on defence contracts.”