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0 pointskartikkumar12y ago0 comments

Nice! Yes there is in fact ... the small-satellite sector. My background is in Aerospace Engineering so I have quite a good grip on the state of technology and of the market. Last year I spoke to various interested parties in Bangalore, including ISRO, DRDO, and Mahindra Aerospace. I also gave a talk at PESIT in Bangalore at a SpaceUp conference [1], organized by a space startup called DhruvaSpace (who I had advanced talks with to partner with) [2].

The main problem was that although everyone was very excited, to the point of telling me that I'd be crazy not to enter this space (double-meaning intended) in India right now, they also told me to be ready to rip my hair out and scream, not because the startup ecosystem isn't ready for it, but because government regulations are opening things up VERY slowly. People were telling me that nothing will happen within 5 years, possibly 10, so it's a BIG time investment and effort to tussle with government.

I'm still really excited at the ideas I have, because I think they can promote commercial and social use of satellite technology in India to tackle a wide range of problems that my market research indicated are current and real.

[1] http://spaceupindia.org/?page_id=115 [2] http://dhruvaspace.com/

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kamaal12y ago

Thanks, As some one working a lot in my spare time and weekends in hopes of doing good side projects, and may be transform it to a business someday. Gives me great hope to see such things happening especially in the Bangalore scene.

I can understand the obvious limitations and regulations the government may likely to place on space industry. Very licenses and permissions may require paying up heavy commissions/bribes- Every one wants a piece of that black money, they are not going to bring in free market reforms here, Because they know once that comes in there will be cut throat competition. Government workplaces won't be able to deal with the quality, quantity and speed of development and will have to ultimately shut down. The reforms will come only if they are sure the industry will die anyway, and would like private players to salvage something out of it.

Will read up on small satellite design. You are very correct that we can solve a ton of problems with small satellites.

Do you know of any good resources to start reading up upon?

kartikkumarOP12y ago

Yea, I don't want to get into any shady dealings, and my worry is that especially in a government-dominated sector like the space industry in India, it's very difficult to make headway unless you do. I'm willing to wait it out to some extent, but I guess I have a very short fuse when it comes to idiocy. That's eventually why I decided to wait with the idea.

The other area that I'm really interested in is the MOOC space in India. So I might target that otherwise if it's an easier area to break into.

There's a good page on the NASA website about small sat tech [1]. In addition, there are lotsa specific implementations that you can read about online, like the Cubesat architecture, Cansats etc. And finally, I'd look to university websites to see what tech they're deploying. In Delft, where I'm doing my PhD, we have an on-going small sat program. The first satellite, Delfi-C3 was a great success. Delft-NeXT is going to be launched next month [2].

[1] http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/... [2] http://www.delfispace.nl/index.php/delfi-n3xt

ksoti12y ago

Are there any MOOC startups you know of, in India, that one can get involved in?

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