PM Modi praises the growth of Indian spacetech startups

During his monthly Mann Ki Baat radio broadcast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised the rapid growth of the private spacetech industry in India over the last few years. He said that this growth was unexpected, but fulfilled the early dreams of so many children to touch the stars in the sky.

"Young people associate touching the sky with achieving their aspirations. How can the heavens, or space, be unaffected by it at this time when our India is touching the sky of success in so many fields?," he said. "Many significant achievements in the space industry have taken place in our nation over the last few years."

Modi also singled out individual founders and space startups for praise.

Chennai-based Agnikul and Hyderabad-based Skyroot were both lauded for their attempts to build smaller payload launch vehicles that are aimed at reducing the cost of spaceflight launches.

Similarly, Hyderabad-based Dhruva Space's work to build advanced solar panels for satellites and satellite launchers was also acknowledged during the broadcast.

The Prime Minister also mentioned by name founders Tanveer Ahmed of Digantara and Neha Satak of Astrome for the inspiring work in the field. Digantara is working on tracking human-made garbage in space, while Astrome is building small, flat antennas that can reduce costs world over.

“Neha, the Founder of Astrome, a space startup in Bengaluru, is working on an amazing idea. These startups are making such flat antennas that will not only be small, but their cost will also be very less. Demand for this technology can be all over the world,” Modi said.