S. Korean, Indian space authorities to explore bilateral cooperation, business opportunities

Bengaluru, April 20 Space authorities of South Korea and India held a joint industry event on Monday to expand cooperation and explore space-related business opportunities between the countries, Seoul's space agency said.

The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) said it co-hosted the Korea-India Space Day event with IN-SPACe, India's space industry promotion and regulatory agency, in Bengaluru.

The event was arranged as part of follow-up measures to a memorandum of understanding signed last year between KASA and the Indian Space Research Organization, and on the occasion of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's visit to India for a summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reports Yonhap news agency.

At the event, nine South Korean firms, including Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. and Innospace, delivered keynote presentations on their core capabilities, alongside nine Indian companies.

"India, which successfully achieved the world's first landing near the moon's south pole, is an important partner for us," said Oh Tae-seog, head of KASA, adding that the two countries plan to strengthen cooperation to build a leading partnership in the global space economy.

Meanwhile, the number of space startups have reached more than 400 in India, while the investment in such startups crossed more than $500 million.

The establishment of Earth Observation (EO) satellite constellation on PPP model will spur innovation and improve global confidence of our Indian space tech companies. Twenty-five companies are already testing their satellites/subsystems in the real environment of space by taking advantage of platforms like 'POEM'.

State governments are seeing space as a sunrise sector and making proactive policies to encourage companies in this domain through incentive schemes. Moreover, Indian space companies are slowly beginning to embed in global aerospace and space supply chains.

Prominent space startups grown in the country after 2014 are Pixxel, Dhruva, Skyroot Aerospace, Agnikul Cosmos and Bellatrix Aerospace, etc.

‘Startup India’ was launched on January 16, 2016 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a transformative national programme to nurture innovation, promote entrepreneurship and enable investment-driven growth, with the objective of making India a nation of job creators rather than job seekers.

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