Detailed structure and activities of IN-SPACe released

The Department of Space has notified the detailed structure, roles and responsibilities of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization (IN-SPACe), which will be engaged in the commercialization of the space-related activities in the country.

Highlights

This is a single-window agency which is going to permit and oversee activities by private sector right from building launch vehicles and satellites to launching it. It will also monitor the usage of data generated by private spacecraft and rolling out any space-based services in the country. The private sector will also be given technology challenges and shortlisted proposals from such challenges will be promoted or part-funded by the government.

Background

Now, the industry participation in the space activities in the country is limited mainly to building parts for the ISRO missions. These included 500 medium and small-scale enterprises, public sector enterprises and private industries. ISRO data says that it has generated jobs for around 45000 people in the country and has also matured the Indian industry in manufacturing motor cases, engines, satellite production and rocket motor building to the level of exporting indigenous technologies.

Significance

A complete mission involves developing the spacecraft, launch vehicle and launching a mission. Infrastructure is required for this to carry out expensive research and development, integration and testing and launch port. All these are capital intensive and take time to be constructed. With this new mechanism, ISRO will share the already existing infrastructure with the private players and will also help the private sector to create temporary infrastructure within the Space establishments. These will be provided at a very reasonable cost to the private players.

Administration of IN-SPACe

It will have a chairman, technical experts for space activities, safety considerations, legal and strategic experts and member of the industry and academia. The body will also have members from the PMO and the Ministry of External Affairs. It will also have a monitoring directorate that will have oversight over space activities till the completion of the missions. This will also suggest corrective measures. Any dispute will be resolved by IN-SPACe and Department of Space.

Month: Current Affairs - July, 2020