"India’s space sector to attract $26 bn, hit $44 bn revenue by 2033"

India is likely to see $26 billion worth of investments in the space sector as the country’s space economy grows multiple times from $8 billion (in 2022) to $44 billion by 2033, Pawan Goenka, chairman, IN-SPACe said. In-SPACe is the central government’s nodal agency that promotes, authorises and supervises space-related commercial activities in India.

In an exclusive interview with Fortune India, Goenka said the investments will be a mix of government funds, equity investments -- both domestic and foreign -- and capital expenditure spent by space sector companies themselves.

“If you look at the current government spending, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s budget itself is $ 1.5 billion. Add to that the money spent by other government departments, we don’t have a quantification of it today, but that will add up to another meaningful number. And you have private investments both by the companies and investors coming in,” he explained.

According to Goenka, between $300 and 400 million is the equity investment that has happened in Indian space sector startups. The amount invested by the companies themselves and the investments by startup founders are not captured in the same manner. “Large companies active in the space sector, like L&T, Godrej, etc., are also investing and we have no visibility to those numbers. For example, anyone who gets the Earth Observation (EO) Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project will invest upwards of $100 million. Whoever gets the SSLV project will probably invest about $70-80 million. All of these numbers will start adding up now. We estimate the combined investment by all the companies as well as the government spends will be about $26 billion, and will result in $44 billion revenues for the sector,” he said.

The ‘decadal vision and strategy’ prepared by IN-SPACe last year had estimated the Indian space economy to be about $ 8.4 billion in 2022, with a potential to grow to $44 billion by 2033. The segments that are expected to contribute most to this growth are space communication (potential to generate $14.8 billion), navigation ($ 9.3 billion), earth observation ($8 billion), satellite manufacturing ($4.6 billion) and launch segment ($3.5 billion). IN-SPACe estimates one-fourth of its $44 billion target or $11 billion to come from export revenues from the sale of products and services in the space sector.