In an era increasingly defined by a U.S.-China contest for orbit, India’s space wave is emerging as the third force: not just competitive but trusted.
Rahul PAWA | @imrahulpawa (X)
From Sriharikota’s launch pads to orbiting skies, India’s space agency ISRO has quietly become the go-to commercial launcher for dozens of countries. In the past decade, Indian rockets have placed nearly 390 foreign satellites into orbit. The United States is by far the biggest client, 232 U.S. built satellites have hitched rides with India since 2014, but others are close behind. For example, Britain has sent roughly 83 satellites via ISRO, Singapore about 19, with Canada and South Korea also among the customers (8 and 5 satellites respectively). Space industry analysts note that ISRO “has become a symbol of reliability and innovation, with rockets praised for precision, efficiency and affordability. This reputation for dependable, cost-effective launches helps explain why a dozen nations now entrust key payloads to India’s launchers.
At the heart of ISRO’s appeal is its workhorse rocket, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Decades of development have yielded an unusually high success rate, about 94% over 63 missions to date and even occasional world records. In 2017, for instance, a single PSLV mission put 104 satellites into orbit at once shattering the previous record and demonstrating ISRO’s scheduling precision and multi-payload management. As ISRO executives have noted, each launch showcases India’s growing expertise and boosts international confidence.
This technical reliability comes with a financial edge. ISRO’s launch prices are substantially lower than many competitor rates. One survey finds PSLV missions run on the order of $21-31 million apiece, compared with roughly $62-67 million for a SpaceX Falcon 9 and $178 million for a Europe’s Ariane 5. Even for very small satellites, India is pushing the cost down. Its new Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) is advertised around $3.7 million per flight, a tiny fraction of Western ride-share prices. In short, ISRO offers clients a low-cost, high reliability launch option. No wonder space agencies and companies in emerging markets often choose India when budgets are tight or missions are sensitive.
Countries and companies have leveraged ISRO’s launchers across a range of applications. In Europe-India collaborations, the UK’s Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. contracted ISRO to orbit two remote-sensing satellites in 2018: NovaSAR (an S-band synthetic-aperture radar craft) and S1-4 (a high-resolution optical imager) to monitor forests, floods and ships. Likewise, Brazil launched its Amazonia-1 Earth-observation satellite on a PSLV in 2021, gathering critical imagery of Amazon deforestation and agriculture. Singapore has also joined the client roster: in 2023 PSLV carried the TeLEOS‑2 radar satellite and a small experimental payload (LUMILITE‑4) for Singapore’s government, both intended for maritime and environmental data collection.
American commercial entities make heavy use of India’s ride shares. For example, a single 2017 launch carried 96 cubesats built by U.S. companies: 88 from Planet Labs for high-resolution Earth imaging and 8 from Spire Global carrying weather and ship-tracking sensors. ISRO’s track record gives confidence even to sensitive payloads, from Earth-observation craft to communication satellites. Recent missions have included U.S. tech-firms communications spacecraft (AST Space Mobile’s BlueBird satellite) and French company data-relay microsats, all trusting PSLV or India’s heavy-lift GSLV rocket to deliver them to precise orbits. In every case, India’s rockets deliver their payloads efficiently attracting clients from around the globe.
Back home, this international success has coincided with a boom in India’s private space industry. Since 2020 the PM Narendra Modi led government has opened the sector, launching an independent regulator (IN-SPACe) and a dedicated $1.2 billion venture fund to back innovation. The result: over 200 new space startups have emerged, from launch-vehicle builders to satellite manufacturers and data analytics firms. These companies are designing everything from small rockets to Earth-observation constellations. Government studies project India’s space economy could quintuple, reaching around $44 billion by the early 2030s as the country captures 8-10% of a global market that could hit that size. Even global investors are taking notice: for example, Google’s parent Alphabet has put $36 million into one Indian satellite startup to build hyper spectral-imaging craft.
Crucially, India’s startups stand to benefit from ISRO’s infrastructure even as they go commercial. By law, private launches must use ISRO launchpads, and new small-launcher ventures are in line to use the upcoming Sriharikota New Spaceport as well as the older coastal range. Meanwhile, partnerships abound: several startups work alongside ISRO labs (for avionics, propulsion or data downlinks), and some major projects (like Gaganyaan astronaut flights) channel advanced R&D that will have civilian spinoffs. In short, India’s homegrown space ecosystem is maturing just as global demand for satellites is exploding. This groundswell highlights the imperative that India is not just a launcher for others, but a growing hub of space innovation.
In pure dollar terms, the satellite-launch business has so far yielded moderate sums for India. The official trade data show that ISRO’s foreign-launch revenue from 2015-2024 totalled on the order of $143 million. (By comparison, SpaceX alone earned tens of billions over the same period.) However, a more detailed breakdown highlights rapid growth: India’s Minister for Department of Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh recently reported about $172 million in receipts from U.S. satellite contracts and €292 million from Europe in the last decade, with more launches on the manifest. Crucially, these revenues come from launch service fees, not counting the wide range of data and technology that follow.
What matters more is momentum. The global space market is on a steep upward trajectory. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate up to 70,000 new satellites will be launched worldwide in the next five years, as low-orbit constellations multiply and nations seek independent capabilities. To capture a share of that market, India leverages its reputation for reliability and low-cost service. Policy planners note that India’s portion of the global space economy (currently around 2%) could realistically rise into the high single digits or 10% range by the early 2030s. Now competing head-to-head with American and Chinese players, ISRO is no longer merely offering “low cost” launches; it is carving out a durable commercial position where every additional mission translates into millions in revenue, deeper industrial capability and steady demand for India’s growing pool of aerospace talent. The larger point, though, is strategic: India has built a space proposition that scales. Decades of hard engineering, disciplined operations and relentless cost control have produced a launch system that customers treat as a safe bet-predictable schedules, precise insertions and pricing that keeps capital free for what matters most: the satellite itself and the services it enables. As the world rushes to deploy constellations for communications, climate monitoring, logistics and security, ISRO’s credibility becomes a form of national leverage-and a platform for Indian startups to climb the value chain, from propulsion and satellite manufacturing to the downstream data economy. In an era increasingly defined by a U.S.-China contest for orbit, India’s space wave is emerging as the third force: not just competitive but trusted.
(Rahul PAWA is an international criminal lawyer and director of research at New Delhi based think tank Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies)
CIHS - Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies 