ISRO is facing significant talent loss, with hundreds of scientists and engineers (estimates range from 400 to 700 between 2012-2024) leaving for India’s booming private space industry, particularly affecting key centres like URSC and VSSC and threatening projects such as Gaganyaan, Chandrayaan-4, and the Bharatiya Antariksh Station.

The private space sector has grown rapidly due to government reforms (IN-SPACe in 2020, Indian Space Policy 2023), now boasting over 1,200 startups, attracting major FDI, and achieving milestones like Skyroot’s Vikram-1 launch, with projections for the space economy to reach $44 billion by 2033.

While challenging for ISRO, the migration is not a traditional brain drain; experienced ISRO talent is strengthening the domestic private sector, and the government has tightened resignation rules for critical personnel while continuing to support private growth through funding and policy.

India’s space research and development programme is facing a severe crisis, with more than a hundred scientists and technologists leaving the State-owned Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to join the booming Indian private space industry.  According to “The Week” ISRO has seen around 700 people resign between 2012 and 2024. Others put the figure at 400. 

However, looking at it from another perspective, the emigration is not all bad. Scientists from ISRO are not fleeing to the US but joining the thriving Indian private space industry. There is no “brain drain” as was the case decades ago, when the Indian private sector was undeveloped and not very progressive. 

The emigres from ISRO bring to the private sector, their abundant experience and expertise garnered over decades of service. They are now contributing to the Indian space industry in the private sector that now boasts of more than 1,200 startups.

However, it cannot be denied that the migration has put a question mark over ISRO’s critical missions. Some of the affected projects are the “Gaganyaan” which aims to launch a crew of three astronauts into a 400 km low Earth orbit for a three-day mission and return them safely to Earth. Then there is “Chandrayaan-4”, which is to perform a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface. There is in addition, the “Bharatiya Antariksh Station”, an indigenous, modular space station is the biggest project in the pipeline. 

While a hundred-odd departures out of a total workforce of over 14,000 employees might seem like a minor statistical blip on paper, the true weight of the crisis lies not in the “quantity” of the departing staff, but in their “quality.” This is not a standard case of entry-level employee turnover. The losses have been concentrated at the very peak of the agency’s technical hierarchy.

According to “Outlook........

© Eurasia Review