Ready For Take-Off

India Needs To Empower Domestic Startups To Claim A Bigger Share Of The Global Space Market

- Abhinav Singh

The headquarters of Antrix Corporation Ltd in Bengaluru is impressively lush. Tall trees surround the circular building, and the canopy of green makes for a lovely view from the huge office of Rakesh Sasibhushan, Antrix’s chairman and managing director. The premises are not heavily guarded, unlike the nearby headquarters of Antrix’s parent company, the Indian Space Research Organisation. “We need to make it easily accessible for businesses and people, as we are [ISRO’s] commercial arm,” says Sasibhushan. “We aim to do business and get customers.”

Antrix has 84 clients in the communications field, including Airtel DTH, Tata Sky and Sun Network. It has only 20 people on its rolls, and had a turnover of 2,039.33 crore in 2017-18. (Last year’s results are yet to be announced.)

The revenue is impressive, but not substantial. Antrix, which focuses on satellite launch services for its customers, has achieved only a fraction of what global players such as SpaceX and OneWeb have pulled in. “A lot of work needs to be done for Indian companies to play a meaningful role in the world market,” Sasibhushan tells THE WEEK. “Seventy to 80 per cent revenue in the space market comes from satellite services. Today, India’s share in the global space market is less than 7 per cent. Though India is a major space-faring nation, we do not have private players who can design and build space systems.”