As private companies take a larger role in rocket manufacturing, concerns are growing that it could weaken the very institution that built India’s space programme

Days after a flawless GSLV launch put another Indian Earth-observation satellite into orbit, nine employee associations of the Indian Space Research Organisation did something unprecedented: they wrote jointly to chairman V Narayanan, demanding clarity on whether the government intends to strip ISRO of its core function building and launching rockets — and hand it to private industry instead. The trigger was a remark by IN-SPACe chief Pawan Goenka that ISRO will eventually stop manufacturing launch vehicles altogether. The unions fear exactly what they said aloud: that India’s space agency is being reduced to a “residual R&D boutique”, stripped........

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