New Delhi, June 24 (KNN) The “Make in India” Conference on Enabling Spacecraft Systems Realization through Industries (ESSRI - 2016) was organized on Thursday at ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru.

The Conference was organized to elicit industry support for spacecraft realization on an end-to-end basis to meet the rapidly increasing national demand for space based services and the realization of Prime Minister’s objective of “Make in India”, the Department of Space has said in a release.

Over the years, a number of Indian Industries have been actively participating in realizing various subsystems of spacecraft.  A variety of models have been adopted by ISRO in outsourcing jobs to these vendors.  However, end-to-end realization of spacecraft has not yet been realised.  The Conference aimed to fill this gap, the release added.

A.S. Kiran Kumar, Chairman, ISRO/Secretary, DOS said that almost all the Government departments and ministries had evinced keen interest in applying space technology for carrying out their mandates. 

In order to meet the increased demand for space based services, it was imperative that ISRO joined hands with the Industries in its effort towards enhancing its capacity.  He also impressed upon the delegates about India’s great potential to capture a sizeable portion of the business in the international space market.

In his address, Dr. M. Annadurai, Director, ISAC spoke about the need for launching at least 10-12 satellites every year.  He stressed that this goal would necessarily have to be driven by a synergetic collaboration between ISRO and Industry since such a partnership would be a win-win situation for both.  Dr Annadurai also announced that the Expression of Interest (EoI) for realizing spacecraft on an end-to-end basis has been hosted on ISRO/ISAC websites and invited the industries to respond to it.

The Chief Guest, Arvind Melligeri, Chairman and CEO, Aequs Private Limited, Belagavi, commended the good work ISRO had done so far and opined that enhanced industry participation in Indian Space Programme would take this to greater heights.

About 110 Industries in aerospace business participated in the Conference.  During the interaction, the Industries presented their capabilities and expressed their commitment to partner with ISRO for the realization of satellites on end-to-end basis.  Further, they also expressed their readiness for gearing-up to venture into global space market. (PIB Inputs)