From science to commerce: the evolution of space development policy and technology accumulation in India

By judiciously combining internal and external knowledge acquired since the early 1960s, India has been able to build one of the strongest national space programmes in the world. Space development policy and technology accumulation in India appear to have evolved in different phases. In the 1960s the space programme was mainly science-oriented; in the 1970s it progressed to technological experimentation and learning; in the 1980s the emphasis was on achieving ‘threshold’ capabilities in satellite and rocket technologies; and in the 1990s the focus shifted to commercialisation. This article traces India's space programme, which began as a ‘science’ programme in the 1960s, and by the 1990s had evolved into a ‘commercial’ programme.