Downstream spacetech is workhorse of India's space sector: Experts

Downstream spacetech market is ripe for picking by private sector, said Nilesh M Desai, Director, Space Application Centre on Thursday. He was speaking on the second day of the Bengaluru Space Expo, being organised by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

According to Desai, downstream spacetech transforms space data into practical applications and is a workhorse of India's space sector.

"Hence the private sector has to come forward to tap the ground segment and user segment that comprise much of the downstream market," he said during the session on 'Space Applications for Business Growth: Leveraging GIS Solution for the Private Sector.'


Desai said that applications like GIS that leverage earth observation/remote sensing data, space communication, and space navigation offer enormous business opportunities for the startups.

"The government is making space data open for industries to create decision support systems, mapping and monitoring applications for physical assets, agriculture, tourism, weather forecasting for aviation, marketing solutions based on spatial information, fishing and shipping sector applications, and disaster management solutions," he added.

Prakash Chouhan, Director, NRSC, said the next huge task is the creation of a space data amalgamation platform for creating applications for governments, organisations and the individuals.

Chouhan cited examples of state governments in India that are able to increase their revenue collection using space data; to monitor the progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals, urban land use; to plan infrastructure projects and to calculate the potential of rooftop solar potential.

"In the private/business sectors and individual customers, some of the applications of space data include site selection of factories, data dissemination using smart phones, data visualization using AR/VR, and value added services based on AI, ML and Large Language Models," he added.

Abhishek Kotangale, Regional Director (South Asia), Geospatial World, said the space era and knowledge organisations go hand in hand.

"The geospatial technology and GIS market in India alone is estimated to grow to USD 4 billion and USD 3 billion by 2028. The growth of downstream spacetech will uplift the upstream spacetech segment, as they both are complementary," he said.

According to him, the integration of space data into the domains of IoT, AI, ML, quantum computing, and VR will be a game changer for the spacetech startup ecosystem.