Mann Ki Baat: PM Modi lauds India's growth in space sector; 'Many big feats accomplished'

In-SPACe is an independent nodal agency under the Department of Space for allowing space activities and usage of DOS owned facilities by NGPEs as well as to prioritise the launch manifest.

Science    27-Jun-2022
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New Delhi, June 17: Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio address on Sunday said many big feats have been achieved in the field of space including the creation of over 100 startups in the sector alone. “Till a few years ago, in space sector, no one even thought about start-ups. Today their number is more than a hundred,” said PM Modi.
 
PM Modi 
 
Modi also hailed the creation of In-Space which is working towards promoting new opportunities in the space sector for the private sector.“Many big feats related to the space sector have been accomplished in our country. One of these achievements has been the creation of an agency named In-Space,” he added.
 
In-SPACe is an independent nodal agency under the Department of Space for allowing space activities and usage of DOS owned facilities by NGPEs as well as to prioritise the launch manifest.
 
Modi mentioned he came across some startups working in collaboration with In-SPACe and highlighted the work being done by them. Two start-ups based in Chennai and Hyderabad, Agnikul and Skyroot are developing launch vehicles that will take small payloads into space, he said.
 
Incubated at IIT Madras, Agnikul Cosmos signed an MoU with the Department of Space last year for using ISRO’s facilities and expertise. The startup is developing and testing systems and sub-systems of space launch vehicles. In 2021, the company raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Mayfield India.
 
 
 
Skyroot Aerospace, founded and led by former ISRO scientists successfully tested India’s first privately developed fully cryogenic rocket engine ‘Dhawan I’.
 
The prime minister mentioned another Hyderabad-based startup ‘Dhruva Space’, which is working on High Technology Solar Panels for Satellite Deployer and Satellites. “I also met Tanveer Ahmed of Digantara, another space start-up who is trying to map waste in space,” said Modi.
 
 
 
Neha, the founder of Astrome, a space start-up in Bangalore, is working on an amazing idea. These start-ups are making such flat antennas which will not only be small, but their cost will also be very less. Demand for this technology can be all over the world, he added.
 
“In the program of In-Space, I also met Tanvi Patel, a school student of Mehsana. She is working on a very small satellite, which is going to be launched into space in the next few months. Tanvi explained her project to me in Gujarati.”
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