By Prime Minister Narendra Modi met CEOs and founders of 20 space sector startups as part of National Space Day celebrations, urging the private sector to help build India into a global innovation hub.
Modi said India should create an environment in which people across the world feel that if they want to build a career in space, they should come to India, citing the country’s talent pool and risk-taking capacity.
“Build a global aura of innovation so that people worldwide feel that if they want to make a career, they should go to India,” Modi said at the interaction.
The Prime Minister stressed that predictable and stable policymaking was crucial to encouraging innovation and giving entrepreneurs the confidence to pursue ambitious ventures in the sector.
Skyroot Aerospace CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana, whose company became India’s first space-tech unicorn, thanked Modi for opening up the sector and referenced the company’s successful July 18 launch of India’s first privately developed rocket.
National Space Day is observed annually on August 23 to mark the anniversary of Chandrayaan-3’s historic landing near the lunar south pole in 2023.
Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh, also present at the event, praised Chandrayaan-3’s achievement in placing India among the world’s leading spacefaring nations.
The startups Modi interacted with spanned a range of specialisations, including launch vehicles, satellite imaging and space situational awareness, reflecting the breadth of India’s growing private space ecosystem.
The government has in recent years opened up various segments of the space sector to private participation, part of a broader push to grow India’s space economy several-fold over the coming decade.
Modi’s remarks come amid a wider push by the government to position India as a competitive, cost-effective hub for space manufacturing and launch services on the global stage.
India’s space economy is currently valued at approximately $8 billion, with the government targeting growth to around $44 billion by 2033 through greater private sector participation.
Chandrayaan-3’s 2023 landing made India only the fourth country to achieve a soft lunar landing and the first to touch down near the Moon’s south pole, a milestone that has since become a touchstone for the country’s space ambitions.
Photo by Anirvan Shukla, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
