“ISRO’s research is now available to private sector for business opportunities,” he said in the national capital on Wednesday.
Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value Skill Courses
| Offering College | Course | Website |
|---|---|---|
| Indian School of Business | ISB Professional Certificate in Product Management | Visit |
| Indian School of Business | ISB Product Management | Visit |
| Indian School of Business | ISB Applied Business Analytics | Visit |
| Northwestern University | Kellogg Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management | Visit |
He said the agency will no longer be a secretive organisation, adding that its mandate has changed to doing research and transferring its knowledge to industry for business.
Further, government funding is no longer sufficient to run all ISRO’s programmes, hence it is looking for private investment and FDI, Somanath said. Going forward, public-private partnerships will be key for the Indian space industry to expand its revenues from $7 billion to $50 billion.
“Future rockets should be made by public-private consortia,” Somanath said, and ISRO will transfer knowledge, including know-how on SLV and SSLV rockets, to industry consortia for making rockets. India needs up to 500 satellites but has only 53 at present, he added.
Companies incubated by ISRO have already begun building rocket engines and satellites, while newer companies are interested in using space data, he said. However, he said that these companies will take time to mature. “ISRO is supporting them and not competing with them,” the chairman remarked.
Discover the stories of your interest
Regarding the incorporation of ISRO’s navigation system in the iPhone 15, Somanath said, “Our goal is to be better than GPS for navigation in India.”ETtech Explainer: What is NavIC? Indian GPS alternative will be mandatory in all smartphones by 2025
Apple’s iPhone 15, launched earlier this month, was built to support ISRO-made satellite navigation system NavIC, or Navigation with Indian Constellation, in addition to US-made GPS.
Further, ISRO had to modify the bands and have L1 band for the phones.
