While private participation has broadened India’s space ecosystem, the country must ensure that ISRO does not lose talent to emerging ventures

On July 18, a rocket that owed nothing to the Indian Space Research Organisation raced through the sky over Sriharikota and did what no Indian company had ever done: it reached orbit. Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1, flying under the mission name Aagaman — Sanskrit for “arrival” — made India only the third country after the United States and China to host a privately built orbital launch vehicle.

It is a genuine milestone. It also lands amid the loudest talent crisis ISRO has faced in years, and the timing is not a coincidence. The scale of Saturday’s achievement is easy to understate. For six decades, reaching orbit from Indian soil has meant one thing:........

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