New Delhi, Sep 6 — Pawan Goenka, Chairman of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), said on Sunday that ISRO will remain the bedrock of Indian space sector, as some misleading reports surfaced around the future role of the Indian space agency.
In a post on X, he said that there has been some misleading narrative in the media around the future role of ISRO.
“Let me say it unequivocally: ISRO’ s role is by no means diminishing. It will remain the bedrock of Indian space sector. The reforms since 2020 are about expanding India’s overall space ecosystem. IN-SPACe will facilitate and authorise greater non-government participation, while NSIL will help commercialise mature capabilities,” Goenka mentioned.
He further stated that the idea is to let industry increasingly manufacture and scale mature launch vehicles, satellites and other systems, while ISRO focuses on what it is uniquely placed to do: advanced R&D, scientific missions, strategic missions, new technologies, and infrastructure that is too complex for the private sector to develop on its own.
“ISRO will remain at the core of India’s space programme leading frontier research and the next generation of national missions, including the Bharatiya Antariksh Station by 2035, an Indian crewed mission to the Moon by 2040, next-generation launch systems, and sustained lunar and planetary exploration,” he noted.
The direction is not a smaller ISRO. It is a larger Indian space ecosystem, with ISRO pushing the technological frontier, he said.
Earlier in the day, he said that India is targeting a major expansion in its space launch capabilities, with plans to increase the number of launches to 50 a year by 2030 as the country looks to build a full-fledged commercial space ecosystem.
Goenka said the decision to open India’s space sector to private players five years ago was guided by two key objectives — enabling the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to venture into new frontiers and creating opportunities for private industry to scale up its capabilities.
"Now comes the real test: scaling up. We have set ourselves an ambitious target of 50 launches a year by 2030," he said.