New Delhi: During one of his many engagements with academia, ISRO chairman S Somanath delivered the convocation address at the 13th convocation ceremony of the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Delhi. Somanath highlighted the greater role that academic institutions are expected to play in India’s space ambitions, as ISRO increasingly relies on the private sector to realise its goals of building domestic capabilities to reach parity with the most advanced spacefaring nations in the world. ISRO has been able to provide democratic, affordable, on-demand access to space, but there is a requirement for developing applications, and adding value to the captured data.
The various recovery options considered by ISRO for its reusable rockets. Chopsticks were not one of the options. (Image Credit: ISRO).
Somanath said, “You need to do fundamental work in research and development, but you should also know how to translate that into product development, that will bring in business value for industries. Connecting industries to do research in academic institutions and give and take that is to happen, this is something which is not happening in our country. As an institution, I think you have to play greater role in reshaping where you are in the domain that you are. Just not producing students and skills, but it is also transforming an ecosystem where you are working.”
Research support is needed for space domain
In most advanced spacefaring countries, either there is a close nexus between industry, academia and the national space agencies, or they are all government owned and operated. This provides valuable opportunities for the academia to conduct their experiments, develop, demonstrate and advance their technologies, as well as opportunities to send academic payloads into space, even all the way to the surface of the Moon. India hopes to establish a continuous human presence in Earth orbit, and is reaching for the Moon as well. To meet these ambitions, the space sector in India will have to rely heavily on private industries, as well as academic institutions.
