ISRO’s Space Programme – Building Industrial-Scale Capability

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• India’s space programme is at a crucial juncture as the national space agency faces the challenge of sustaining high-frequency, complex missions at an industrial scale.

India’s Space Programme: A Phase of Maturity

• Over the past decade, India’s space programme has achieved a remarkable breadth of accomplishments despite operating with modest budgets compared to global peers. 
• Reliable launch services using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) have become routine, while heavier and more complex missions have been executed using the GSLV and LVM-3 platforms. 
• Successful lunar landing capabilities, a dedicated solar observatory, and advanced Earth observation collaborations have positioned India among a select group of spacefaring nations.
• These achievements reflect a shift from experimental missions to operational reliability. 
• However, sustained success has also raised expectations, pushing the space programme into a phase where the ability to execute missions consistently and at scale has become as important as technological breakthroughs. 

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Rising Mission Complexity and Capacity Constraints

• As India prepares for upcoming programmes such as human spaceflight, advanced lunar exploration, and next-generation launch vehicles, mission complexity is increasing rapidly. 
• These programmes demand higher launch frequencies, parallel project execution, and faster turnaround times.
• However, the current launch cadence and integration capacity have emerged as structural bottlenecks. 
• A limited number of launches in recent years has highlighted constraints in testing infrastructure, manufacturing depth, and project scheduling. 
• When delays or anomalies occur in one mission, they often cascade across unrelated programmes, slowing the overall pace of development.
• This challenge underlines the need for greater industrial integration, expanded testing facilities, and a workflow capable of absorbing setbacks without disrupting the entire mission pipeline.

Need for Industrial-Scale Execution

• The next phase of India’s space journey requires a transition from mission-centric execution to system-level industrial performance. 
• This involves separating design, integration, and operational roles more clearly and expanding the industrial supply chain for structures, avionics, and propulsion systems.
• An industrial-scale approach would allow routine missions to proceed independently of experimental or research-oriented projects. 
• It would also reduce dependence on a single institutional bottleneck and enable higher mission throughput. 
• Such a shift is essential for achieving long-term goals such as reusable launch systems and high-payload capabilities.

Governance Challenges in a Liberalised Space Sector

• India’s space sector has undergone liberalisation in recent years, with the creation of new institutions to promote private participation and commercialisation. 
• While roles have been outlined on paper, practical governance challenges remain.
• The absence of a comprehensive national space law has led to ambiguity in authorisation, liability, insurance, and dispute resolution. 
• As a result, the national space agency often continues to function as a default regulator, technical certifier, and problem-solver, even in areas that should ideally be handled by specialised bodies.
• Clear statutory backing for regulatory and commercial institutions would reduce institutional overload and allow the core space agency to focus on frontier technologies and strategic missions.

Competitiveness in a Rapidly Evolving Global Space Economy

• Globally, the space sector is shifting towards higher launch frequencies, partial reusability, and rapid satellite manufacturing. 
• Competitiveness now depends not only on engineering excellence but also on cost efficiency, production depth, and access to capital.
• India’s future launch systems are being designed with reusability and heavy-lift capability in mind, reflecting this changing environment. 
• However, building and operating such systems requires advanced manufacturing ecosystems, robust qualification infrastructure, and sustained investment.
• Recent declines in private investment highlight the difficulty of financing long-gestation space hardware projects, underscoring the need for targeted funding mechanisms and long-term policy stability.

Way Forward for India’s Space Programme

• The success of India’s space ambitions will depend on whether its institutions can evolve from executing individual landmark missions to functioning as a resilient industrial system. 
• Engineering capability, regulatory clarity, manufacturing depth, and financial support must mature together.
• If this transition is achieved, India will be able to deliver complex missions routinely, strengthen its global competitiveness, and unlock new opportunities in science, security, and commercial space activities.

Source: TH