Elon Musk’s SpaceX has become the first private company to launch human beings into orbit. Click here to know more
In this context, here is a look on the role of private participation in the space sector.
How did private participation evolve in the U.S.?
NASA used to have a fleet of five spaceships under its Space Shuttle programme.
These were used to make a total of 135 of journeys into space and the International Space Station (ISS), in the 30 years from 1981 to 2011.
Two of these were destroyed in accidents, the Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003.
Each resulted in the death of seven astronauts.
In the 2003 accident, India-born astronaut Kalpana Chawla was among those killed.
After that, the US government had decided to close the Space Shuttle programme.
The three remaining spaceships, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour, were formally retired in July 2011.
But they were fit for many more flights.
It was decided that it probably no longer made sense for NASA to build and operate these spaceships.
It was not just costly, but was also consuming a lot of scientific resources.
The transportation needs could easily be fulfilled by space vehicles that some private companies were promising to make.
Accordingly, it was decided to help and support these companies in building these spaceships.
These can be hired by other agencies as well and even private individuals.
The NASA collaboration with SpaceX and Boeing was a result of this.
In the meanwhile, NASA utilised Russian spaceships to travel to the ISS, for which it paid tens of millions of dollars for every trip.
Russia also uses the ISS facility, and routinely sends its astronauts to the space station on its own spaceships.
For NASA, private companies' role is expected to be a cheaper option.
It also offers the comfort of operating from home soil and eliminates dependence on a foreign country.
How has private participation so far been?
World over, more and more work of space agencies is already being done in collaboration with private companies.
There are literally hundreds of private entities building commercial satellites for their clients.
However, launch services remain a somewhat restricted zone, considering that it requires elaborate facilities and deep pockets.
But here too, there are several players apart from SpaceX and Boeing.
Many, like Virgin Galatic of businessperson Richard Branson, have already made space flights.
It might soon start offering passenger rides to space to those who can afford to pay.
In fact, in 2019, a spacecraft built by Scaled Composites, a US company, even took a human being for a very short ride into space, becoming the first private spacecraft to do so.
What is the case with India?
Most of the private companies operating in the space sector in India collaborate with the ISRO.
They contribute in building and fabricating the components that go into making rockets and satellites.
There are several companies that have started making satellites for their own use, or for their clients.
However, launch services, including the building of rockets or launch vehicles, is still some distance away in India right now.
ISRO has been collaborating more and more with private industry.
However, the capability to independently carry out even routine space missions, like that by SpaceX/Boeing/Virgin Galactic, has been missing in India.
What are the future prospects?
SpaceX's flight underlines the fact that space research and exploration is now a much more collaborative enterprise than before.
Space agencies of different countries are sharing data and resources.
More importantly, they are increasingly getting together to carry out joint missions as well.
The ISS itself is a good example of international cooperation in the space sector.
The space facility (ISS) is set to retire somewhere around 2028.
ISS's replacement being planned is likely to have participation from at least 10 countries, and possibly private players as well.
There is also a growing realisation that space agencies need to direct their energies and resources more towards scientific research and deep space exploration.
It’s been 50 years since the landing on moon, and efforts to take human beings to Mars and other celestial bodies, needs to be expedited.
Getting back to the Moon, which NASA and some other agencies plan to do in the next few years, is just the first step in that direction.
But that would also require huge amounts of financial resources that most of the space agencies, including NASA, are currently starved of.
Private players are expected to infuse fresh investments as well as technological innovation in this area.
