The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is in a way turning itself inside out. From being a highly security-oriented organisation that has inducted civilian partners very carefully and slowly, it is has now decided to open its doors wide to eventually outsource entire projects on a turnkey basis.
To achieve this, Isro today unveiled a plan to give a major boost to its partnership with industry to take forward the Indian space effort as it joins in right earnest the battle for a share of the commercial market in space hitherto dominated by the Americans and the Europeans.
K Kasturirangan, chairman of Isro, told the conference 'Space Industry Meet 2002', jointly organised by Isro and the Confederation of India Industry (CII), that while the department of space planned to double its investment in the next five years, Isro did not propose to expand its own setup.
Thus, to keep the space programme manageable even as launch vehicles and satellites were needed off the assembly line for commercial use, Isro visualised a big role for industry and for increased integration, Kasturirangan said. "We are meeting at a turning point and a criticality in the overall scale of operations is the need of the hour," he said.
Isro is not courting industry for the first time. The space programme today has over 500 industry partners and 245 technologies have been transferred to industry for commercial exploitation. Thirty per cent of the space budget has so far been invested in industry, totalling Rs 2,900 crore, and 70 per cent of the launch vehicles seen going up on TV is produced by industry.
But Isro wants Indian industry to do more. From components and sub-systems, it is now looking at the delivery of total systems from industry. It wants the launch vehicles and satellites to come from industry straight to the launch pad.
Other than being a source of new business, Dr Kasturirangan saw in greater Isro-industry cooperation a new quality culture emerging that would slowly get diffused and benefit entire industry. He recalled the example of a sugar company that ultimately developed rocket propellants.
In his presidential address, A U Rijhsinghani, managing director of Walchandnagar Industries, one of the earliest industry partners of Isro, suggested a practical setup that could make this cooperation a success.
An executive joint forum of some major state organisations and industries was needed for steering, Rijhsinghani said. "This body needs to meet regularly to plan strategy, devise packages and get commitments from individual players," he added.
Rijhsinghani also felt the need for concurrent engineering for upgradation and standardisation through computerised networking on real-time basis.
This, as well as a unified on-site problem solving mechanism and local salvaging setups, would go a long way in making projects with multiple players deliver on time.
