Indian Space – Towards A “National Eco-System” For Future Space Activities

The vision of Indian Space was enunciated (in early 1970) by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai - who envisioned the development of Indian space capability for benefit to society a nd meeting national development goals. The programm e is founded on self-reliance and indigenous capability developm ent. Indian space activities have made tremendous p rogress in the past 50 years with successful satellites that have contributed to national development, science endeav or and technological capability. Indian communication sate llites in INSAT; Indian EO satellites in IRS; India n positioning satellites in IRNSS; various science missions; Indi an launch vehicles in the PSLV and GSLV; mission to Moon - Chandrayaan-1; a mission to Mars have paved the way for advanced successful development of space capab ility in India. Successful foray into global markets have al so been achieved. All this has enabled a high-class end-to-end systemic capability of design, development and oper ations of Indian space assets and applications. Space based services have created a huge and growin g user base - which is a unique opportunity for dev eloping space industry and creating high technology jobs. Changin g policy environment in India - favoring deregulati on; investments and thrusted privatization; impetus to manufacturin g; intensive co-operation etc are generating a stro ng market drive for space activities in India. Indian space needs t o orient for a quantum jump in technological growth , adopt organisational models that will ensure economic eff iciency and position a vibrant private sector. Nati onal consequences for Indian human space-flight and plan etary exploration programme; quest for a larger sha re and role in global space market; strategies to deal with changi ng political and economic environments and focused imperatives of international cooperation need strategic focus. National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) has t aken up a policy-research study to determine a fut uristic Indian Space Policy - a comprehensive “Indian Space Policy " which addresses the long-term strategy of Indian space and promotes a holistic Indian Space enterprise - align ment to national goals of industrialization and dev elopment; evolving a vibrant eco-system of government-private sector p artnership that assures operational space services (communications, EO and navigation etc) and advanced technology deve lopment; national commitment for \long-term' human space- flight and planetary exploration mission investment s and a strategic international cooperation regime. NIAS has undertaken wide consultation with Indian space prof essionals and is organising a National Space Policy Workshop - all of which will be assimilated into the Policy do cument. The paper presents the outcome of this stud y and the future Indian Space Policy