Highlighting the strides made by Indian startups in the space sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his monthly radio broadcast ‘Mann Ki Baat’ on Sunday said the country cannot lag behind as youth is ready to touch the sky.

In the 90th episode of his monthly radio programme ‘Mann Ki Baat’, Prime Minister Modi said, “During one’s childhood, stories of the moon and stars in the sky attract everyone. For the youth, touching the sky is synonymous with making dreams come true. Today, when our India is touching the sky of success in so many fields, how can the skies, or space, remain untouched by it! In the past few years, many big feats related to the space sector have been accomplished in our country.”

“One of these achievements of the country has been the creation of an agency named In-Space, an agency that is promoting new opportunities in the space sector for the private sector of India,” he stated.

He said until a few years ago hardly people thought of startups in the space sector in India. But today the number of such startups has crossed 100.
Prime Minister mentioned about two start-ups – Agnikul and Skyroot from Chennai and Hyderabad which are developing launch vehicles that will take small payloads into space.

Through this, the cost of space launching is estimated to come down significantly. He further mentioned Hyderabad-based startup Dhruva Space which is working on high-technology solar panels for satellite deployers and satellites.

PM Modi talked about Tanveer Ahmed of Digantara, another space startup that is trying to map waste in space. Both Digantara and Dhruva Space are going to make their first launch from ISRO’s launch vehicle on June 30.

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

PM Modi further mentioned Tanvi Patel, a school student of Mehsana who is working on a very small satellite, which is going to be launched in space in the next few months.

He said like Tanvi, about 750 school students in the country are working on 75 such satellites in the Amrit Mahotsav. Most of these students are from small towns of the country.

“These are the same youth, in whose mind the image of the space sector was like a secret mission a few years ago, but, the country undertook space reforms, and the same youth are now launching their own satellites. When the youth of the country is ready to touch the sky, how can our country be left behind?” he stated.

‘Mann ki Baat’ is a radio programme, broadcast by All India Radio on the last Sunday of every month. The first episode of Mann Ki Baat was broadcast on October 3, 2014.