NEW DELHI (Diya TV) — In order to gain a larger percentage of the booming global space market that is driven more by data and smaller satellites, India is refashioning its space policy. Amid growing global demand for earth observation, navigation systems, and telecommunications, India wants a permanent foothold as one of the key players.

Pawan Goenka, head of India’s space regulatory body IN-SPACe, said the country’s revenue growth would mostly be from downstream applications derived from data coming from satellites orbiting earth, such as improving crop yields, enhancing telecommunications, and helping mitigate the impact of climate change.”.

ISRO, however, has been surprising, having completed the last development flight of its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle, which will be commercialized by private companies. This is necessary because earth observation and climate monitoring increasingly use smaller, more affordable satellites.

Indian companies, including Bellatrix Aerospace and Pixxel, are developing or launching small satellites already, while Agnikul Cosmos and Dhruva Space plan to do so. Companies like SatSure, from Bengaluru, are already working with satellite data to optimize air traffic management that is expected to save $446 million in fuel costs annually for airlines by 2025.

India today captures only 2% of the global space market, and more entrenched U.S., Russian, and Chinese firms are on its heels. Experts say India could easily exploit these strengths in software and data analytics in order to significantly ramp up its share of the downstream space market.

This small satellite industry around the world is likely to gain speed quickly with a total of about 26,104 small satellites lined up for launch between 2023 and 2032. So the potential of the market can be considered around $110.5 billion in the next decade; this is an incredible opportunity for Indian companies. Among such legacy IT firms, Infosys has taken giant strides, while some of the emerging startups among them are Pixxel, which even managed to win contracts with NASA.

Increasingly, the space strategy in India is used both to work together with private companies to erect and launch satellites and to capitalize on expertise in data science and artificial intelligence. The goal is to create a leadership position for India in applications of space, both nationally and for South Asia and global markets.