Demystifying space business in India and issues for the development of a globally competitive private space industry

India has been an early adopter of space technology via sustained investments in developing indigenous infrastructure in space, launch and ground systems for a national mission of utilising societal applications from space assets. The continued support from the Government of India in establishment of an ecosystem for the development of space industry for over four decades has created several hundred industries catering to the national space programme. The present work provides a systematic overview of the value chain of the space ecosystem in India with pointing to some inherent challenges in the current value chain that needs to be addressed to explore the full potential of commercial exploitation, while respecting and fulfilling the needs of the civil society at large. Despite having a successful space program that resulted into many spin-offs, India is yet to have a globally reputed private commercial space company, or at least an internationally competitive industry landscape. An effort has been made to identify specific issues of space policy for the further development of the private space industry to establish a stronger presence of the Indian space industry in the international market.