How ISRO’s partnership with NASA will boost India’s space industry?

Under the agreements, India and the US will participate in manned space missions to the International Space Station. More importantly, the signing of the Artemis agreement aligns India’s space policy with that of the US.

The agreements are bilateral and India is the 27th country to sign it. The US argues that the agreements do not conflict with the Outer Space Treaty, 1967, and the Registration Convention for Objects in Space, which was adopted in 1976. India is a signatory to both.

The agreement calls for stricter registration of space objects, better debris handling, avoidance of biological contamination, sharing of scientific knowledge and consistent standards among space agencies. He also talks on mining and exploration. The agreement asked signatories to refrain from destroying satellites (as India and China have done) and creating debris or allowing rockets to fall back to Earth uncontrolled, as China did. China and Russia are not signatories.

Countries that sign up can participate in NASA’s Artemis mission, which is planning a number of complex manned missions to the Moon and into orbit around it. Signatory nations become part of the aerospace supply chain and gain access to the science and technology that Artemis will develop. This is a big deal.

India’s space policy, released a few months ago, also targets human spaceflight and a sustained presence in space. ISRO will develop technology, infrastructure and an ecosystem to maintain continuous human presence on space stations and moon bases. With this, ISRO’s role will expand to include studying resource utilization in space and searching for water and minerals. This is in line with Artemis’ goals.

The space policy aligns ISRO more closely with NASA in a manner similar to collaborating with private entities. NASA releases data and licenses many of its patents. It also issues tenders for the manufacture of rockets, shuttles, habitats and components after coming up with design or setting specifications.

As a result, many space technologies have become obsolete in fields as diverse as medicine, electronics, climate control, solar power, water and waste recycling, robotics, computer programming, and telemetry. This is in stark contrast to the obvious advances in communications and defence.

The Indian space policy delineates the roles of three major entities – ISRO, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), and the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-SPACE). ISRO will focus on research and development. It will share technologies, products, processes and data from satellites, and establish best practices for government companies and non-governmental entities (NGEs). ISRO’s missions will be operated by NSIL, a public sector company that will interface with industry and commercialize ISRO technology.

IN-SPACe will be responsible for authorizing space activities of entities such as the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and NGE. Its members include at least 400 tech startups, many of which are funded by foreign capital; Listed companies like Bharti Airtel; and joint ventures such as OneWeb (its stakeholders are the UK government and the Bharti group). This can help India develop aerospace related industries on the lines of NASA.

Manned missions are one of the many areas in which the partnership with NASA will give ISRO access to useful technologies. ISRO had scheduled a manned mission, Gaganyaan, which was to orbit the Earth. But the mission fell behind schedule due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

ISRO has no prior expertise in creating a human-safe space environment. A recent statement by its chairman Dr. Somnath indicated that at least eight key mission parameters are yet to be built and tested before the Gaganyaan mission can be launched. There will also be at least three unmanned test flights to ensure the instruments work as designed.

It’s one thing to send rockets into space and quite another to send humans, even for short periods of time. Sending people up for extended periods of time, like the International Space Station, is even more challenging. The Artemis mission aims to establish a permanent habitat on the Moon and in orbit around it. These are huge challenges.

To live in space even for a short period of time, humans must have oxygen and water supplies and recycling facilities for the body’s waste. They need to be protected from extreme heat and cold and high levels of radiation. The habitat and every artifact within it, from chemical toilets to feed tubes, must be designed to be safe and to function in zero gravity.

Humans traveling to space must be trained to negotiate high and low gravity, and must be medically monitored remotely. There is evidence that the immune system can be severely weakened in space and humans can rapidly lose muscle mass unless they do carefully designed exercise. The flight path has to be designed to prevent unacceptably high acceleration and high gravity, which the human body cannot handle.

Initially, India was hoping to send astronauts to Russia for training (where Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian in space, trained before participating in the Soviet mission in 1984). In addition, ISRO was looking to test new technologies such as semi-cryogenic engines in Ukraine. Those plans are now on hold. NASA collaboration can help ISRO quickly understand the technologies it needs and breathe new life into India’s aerospace industry.

UPDATE: June 25, 2023, 01:30 PM IST