When rockets, satellites and spacecraft boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before, can economists fail to tag along? As space-related activity has increased, efforts to measure the space economy have increased in quantity and quality. A recent paper by researchers from the Center for Development Studies and Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology based in the capital of Kerala has attempted to put together a number for the contribution of the space sector to India’s economy, and came up with . 36,794 crore, or 0.23% of GDP. This may not sound like much, but this figure is potentially an underestimate. It is an important sector of the economy that will grow faster than most other sectors and this initial estimate is welcome, the first step towards gaining a firmer control over the real impact of the space sector on India’s economy.
When it comes to estimating the total value added or GDP of an economy, it is important to keep two things in mind. There is a fair element of arbitrariness in these estimates, which can undergo significant changes depending on methodological changes. There are two types of arbitrariness. One pertains to the inclusion/exclusion of certain services. As national income accounting students have been taught for ages, if all housewives do the same amount of work as their neighbors at home, and charge for those services, then without total activity or net, the national income will suddenly increase for households. income is increasing. Many countries question whether or not to include the income of prostitutes in national income – those that do include it, such as Britain, find that their GDP exceeds that of those in France. are not like.
The second element of arbitrariness comes from the inability to put down an exact number for the value of some things. A few years ago, government employees in Bihar went on strike for 21 days. In terms of the actual impact on society and the economy, very little could be seen. This will raise questions on the value of services rendered by the civil service of the state. However, the value of their services is seen as the total value of the civil service salary paid. However, a well-functioning civil service providing efficient administration can add immense value to the economy by enabling it to do things smoothly. This value or its absence is not recorded in the national income accounting. The value of Google searches, which are free to the searcher, is not captured in the same way. Similar is the case with a range of space-enabled services. What is the significance of geo-tagging photographs or drivers arriving at their destination using Google Maps, a service dependent on the US Defense Establishment’s Global Positioning System satellites?
Even with these merits in mind, we should welcome this preliminary estimate of the size of the space economy. Its three major components are space-related equipment (satellites, launch vehicles and accessories), space operations (launch operations, space surveillance, tracking, leasing, brokerage, etc.) and space applications (direct-to-home broadcasting, satellite telephony). are building. remote sensing, etc.). The innovations related to space travel constitute yet another important segment. While India’s space program is primarily dependent on domestic technology, it has not produced many patents that generate a steady stream of royalty income, for the simple reason that the Indian Space Research Organization, the public sector entity that developed India pioneered the space. Endeavor developed technologies that are proprietary, which are not patented, as trade secrets. While some private sector companies have been involved with India’s space program since its inception, they too have focused on precision engineering rather than pioneering innovations.
More than 70% of this space economy comes from space applications related to communication services and DTH. Manufacturing accounts for some 4%, and space operations, the rest. All of this is about to change, very fast. For one, the policy has shifted to encourage private sector participation in space-related development. There are 26 startups in space technologies and services in India, most of them based in Bengaluru. Satellite Internet is largely set to take off with the advent of low-Earth orbiting satellites, which bounce their signals off each other until these satellites are good enough to relay them to the intended ground station. are not properly positioned. Low-Earth orbiting satellites are near enough planet Earth to avoid inefficient geostationary satellite-based Internet services, in which signals have to travel 35,786 km each way up and down. The low-Earth orbiting satellites of Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service, by contrast, are placed 550 km above Earth.
Removing space debris will become a major service, once the number of satellites around our planet increases by leaps and bounds – OneWeb, in which Bharti Airtel is the largest shareholder, Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, can put thousands of satellites into orbit. Will send in Internet connectivity. African and Arab nations that may not have the capability to build rockets, however, have to design satellites and have them launched by major spaceflight nations, to add to the satellite population. Space is another battlefield, where downing a few satellites can give one fighter a huge edge over another. So, the satellites would be damaged, broken, collided or otherwise creating a mess in the heavens to clean up which humans would not be able to leave a celestial chance to avoid spoiling the healthy satellites.
The Russians may have started the space race with the launch of Sputnik in 1957, but the US is now in a clear lead. It is only fitting that the US should take the lead in creating a space account to include space-related economic activities in national income accounting. The UK and the OECD have also devised their own methods.
India will have to invest more in space. This preliminary study suggests that India’s space economy has been shrinking relative to total GDP over the past few years. Space is critical for military capability, sophisticated remote sensing with synthetic aperture radar and reliable data connectivity. To allow India’s space economy to flourish, India needs more space startups, more private investment and more aggressive commercialization of technologies developed by ISRO on its own.
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