New Paradigms for Commercial Benefits from India's Earth Observation Activities

Growth of Indian Earth Observation Program

Indian earth observation (EO) program had roots in the early application experiments using aerial photographs as well as Landsat data. Starting with the aim of meeting domestic requirements, India developed and established an impressive array of cost-effective remote sensing satellite systems, under Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) series, which later began to serve the global community through a network of international ground stations, and commercial alliances. Since the beginning of operational missions with IRS-1A (1988), India launched so far 31 indigenously built EO satellites, including 8 satellites in the geostationary orbit. ¹ These platforms carry a versatile complement of optical/infrared (IR) and microwave sensors (both active and passive) that provide diverse data sets. The range of data is indeed impressive and includes high-resolution data up to 0.8 m and highly synoptic and continuous multiband data on earth disc at 8 km resolution depicting the Indian region and surrounding seas. These sensors enable ground swaths ranging from 10 to 6,000 km. Indian satellites, while providing a reliable supply of data through well-planned continuity of missions, constantly incorporated advancements that enhanced application possibilities.

One of the open distinguishing features in India's EO program is its application-driven approach from the very early stages that gave it a success in contrast to the typical technology push strategies that drove many other EO programs. Another factor pivotal to the success of Indian EO programs is the long-term approach adopted. In the early 2000s, a VISION 2025 for Indian EO program was evolved by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as a long-term planning effort underscoring the thrust on policies combining public good and economic development support objectives. This long-term approach ensured continuity in data services to users through successive generation of imaging satellite systems. The data range was enriched through multispectral, high-resolution, all weather, and stereo imaging sensors.

Currently, 11 satellites ² operating in earth orbits provide EO information. The new satellite missions ³ under varying stages of development include the following: (1) GISAT—a geostationary multispectral and hyperspectral sensing mission to be realized in 2017, (2) CARTOSAT-2E mission with 0.65 m resolution PAN sensor to be realized in 2017, (3) CARTOSAT-3 satellite with a very high-resolution 0.25 m sensor slated for launch in 2018, (4) NISAR—a NASA-ISRO joint mission with Synthetic Aperture Radar payload, (5) OCEANSAT-3 and 3A satellite missions with ocean color monitor, scatterometer, and SST sensor to be realized in 2018 and 2020, respectively, (6) SCATSAT-1 with a Ku band scatterometer payload scheduled during the current year, and (7) INSAT 3DR for replacing INSAT 3D weather satellite scheduled for launch on 8 September, 2016. Thus, this manifest indicates continuity of EO program combining both the depth of technological excellence and the breadth of application potentials spanning land and water resources, high-resolution mapping, ocean observations, and weather/climate applications.

The Indian EO satellite development is now four decades old, from the time the work on the first experimental satellite was begun and over this period, the policy of public investment into building a robust and the state of the art space infrastructure as a community resource to accelerate national developmental processes and for socioeconomic development had taken firm roots. This is justified through a wide spectrum of applications in various sectors encompassing agriculture, land and water resources, forestry, environment, natural disasters, urban planning and infrastructure development, rural development, and forecasting of potential fishing zones. ⁴ As government organizations were primarily the users in the initial decades of the program, engagement with user ministries was pursued through a multilevel organizational mechanism called “National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS),” which was used both for the planning of the missions and for conduct of application-related projects, with user support and involvement. India's EO program had also the foresight to promote capacity building and also setting up of Regional Remote Sensing Service Centers in six regions of the country (starting from five to begin with) for implementing services in respective regions. In addition, several state governments also took initiatives to establish state centers to pursue applications of specific interest to the state.

National Remote Sensing Service Centre (NRSC), a constituent unit of ISRO and located at Hyderabad, was mandated to receive data from Indian and foreign satellites, process data, archive as well as license the use of data to the national users both within the government and outside it. NRSC and the Space Applications Centre made tremendous contributions over the decades to the excellence in national capabilities and growth of EO applications—the former through operational activities and the latter through the strong technical backbone of development of a wide range of state of the art sensors for diverse applications.

Remote Sensing Data Policies in India

The Remote Sensing Data Policy enunciated in 2001 (RSDP-2001) ⁵ not only aimed at regulation of acquisition and dissemination of satellite images in India but also provided the earliest “framework” for a comprehensive imaging policy—according a recognition to the “public good” aspect of remote sensing and reaffirming the national commitment to continued imaging program through IRS. It also created a major pathway on private sector ownership of remote satellites through a licensing process by the Government. The RSDP, however, specified the single-window access by Indian users to satellite images, either Indian or foreign, which drew criticism of free market advocates. Another concept that RSDP-2001 incorporated was the screening of access by private users for images of resolution better than 5.8 m (in light of security concerns and perceptions). The RSDP also required foreign satellite images to be routed through the national agency—National Remote Sensing Centre (then Agency), NRSC.

Even though the RSDP clearly emanated from the competitive challenge of U.S. 1 m images against the Indian 5.8 m IRS system in the Indian market—it was certainly a protective regime for IRS till it could also match with commercial 1 m image availability from IRS systems. That happened only in 2006 as India also launched 2.5 and 1 m images but by then the larger proliferation of 1 m images from U.S. commercial satellites had also happened. Thus, the 5.8 m threshold of RSDP-2001 as “regime for nondiscriminatory access” was found detrimental to Indian cause/users and was soon rendered irrelevant. Therefore, a renewed RSDP in 2011 lowered the bar for “nondiscriminatory access” to 1 m—but then fully retaining all other aspects of RSDP-2001. From a commercial development goal perspective, there are further grounds to be cleared for policy updates in India, especially since the U.S. government has further relaxed the bar on its commercial providers to make available images up to 0.25 m resolution. On the positive side, RSDP ensured strong emphasis on government funding of space infrastructure and also several downstream development activities relating to applications.

Efforts At Commercializing Irs Data and Value-Adding Services

Commercial distribution of IRS data for global users began in the mid-1990s as ISRO's fleet of remote sensing satellites has established excellence in sensor capabilities by global standards and cost-effective service capability. Antrix Corporation, which is owned by the Government of India and established to promote India's space industry and space commerce, was mandated to undertake global marketing of IRS. Antrix established an alliance with one of the then global leaders, namely EOSAT Corporation of United States, which later was transformed into Space Imaging, Inc., for globally marketing Indian remote sensing data. This cooperation brought about a synergy of complementary capabilities available from Antrix and its collaborator from the United States, resulting in a share of the addressable global market. An international network of ground stations emerged out of this alliance involving business/government entities in different countries to directly access data from IRS satellites. Such data reception stations for IRS emerged in the United States, Germany, Russia, China, United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Algeria and so on.

Over the years due to changes in the competitive environment and new trends in commercialization policies and those relating to cooperative sharing of data among various countries in open domain, this marketing model had undergone transformation. The surge in domestic demands has left an ever reducing capacity in IRS for global services. This can only be improved with dedicated commercial satellites, with globally competitive features, through private investments. A policy initiative and new breed of entrepreneurship are necessary to address that opportunity. Increasing societal benefit focus on the Indian space program through EO applications has promoted several value-adding and solution providing enterprises in private sector. These enterprises integrate remote sensing data with now powerful technologies and tools such as geographical information system (GIS), GPS, web access, and information exchange in mobile environment. They are striving to create domestic markets and endeavoring to serve international markets in geospatial information applications.

Global Trends in Commercial EOs

Transformative growth in private sector roles in space had been a reality in the past few years and had been triggered by policy initiatives in the United States and several countries. These roles are manifested into different branches of space endeavors such as initiatives for large low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations, high-throughput communications or high bandwidth Internet delivery, commercial spaceflight, small satellite clusters, commercial cargo and crew transport, and on-demand high-resolution data imaging and delivery. These New Space initiatives involve innovations for disruptive cost reduction or performance enhancements. In particular, in the field of EO data and its applications, a large number of satellite constellations coupled with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems are going to generate Peta bytes of high-resolution data, which are integrated using GIS/GPS and advanced processing and information extraction tools.

The overall trend is to make high-quality data available anywhere within a few hours of acquisition and providing decision support services on near real-time basis.

Transforming Environment and Market Opportunities for EO in India

Despite global slowdown in economies, India's economy had been growing fast, with gross domestic product (GDP) rising at the rate of 7%–8% and many studies suggest that by 2030, India will be among the top three economies in the world. A 300 million strong middle-income population who would be consumers with discernible tastes and priorities and a demographic profile of largest working age population will characterize Indian markets of the future. Applications of advanced EO technologies in convergence with other knowledge-powered communication technologies will be in high demand. Such needs are also relevant for democratization of information, participative governance, and empowerment of lower socioeconomic strata of population. Some estimates indicate the size of geospatial market in India to be about 4 billion USD with an annual growth rate in the range of 12%–15%. Three-fourths of this opportunity emanates from the governmental demands. ⁶

This transforming market scenario calls for a large increase in demands for information in support of education, health, mobility, infrastructure development, and commercial services. There will be need for manifold satellite capacity compared to that at present to satisfy demands on services such as GIS-based decision support systems (DSS), mobile multimedia, positioning and navigation services, disaster management support, rural connectivity, and national security-related applications. This information would be demanded to be delivered across various platforms of software as well diverse user devises. Indeed, security needs would constitute a major segment. Significant unsatisfied demands for satellite capacity and particularly the demand for EO data and derived information (i.e., at higher resolutions) can be good candidates for private satellite missions.

India has launched important developmental initiatives such as Digital India, Make in India, Smart City, Swachh Bharat, Housing for all, Clean Ganga, National Education Mission, Integrated Watershed Management Programme, and National Skill Development Mission programs. These in turn make demands for diverse applications of space technology inevitable—integrating across geographical, sectoral, and temporal domains of the country. A significant boon for users is the Bhuvan, which is the Indian Geo Portal of ISRO. It has been developed and maintained by NRSC, which provides customized application tools for users besides access to satellite images and geospatial information (GI) products, as well as a host of other services. ⁷

EOs and Changing Paradigms

In tandem with the booming scenario for geospatial applications, the Indian private sector had also been showing increasing interest to invest into global initiatives and also explore new segments of value chain in the Indian market. This has already begun to happen in the field of satellite communications and it would also extend into other areas such as EOs and applications, which are now driven by national initiatives as mentioned earlier and a national GIS system. However, it is necessary for private industry to take cognizance of several shifts in market side paradigms. The vastly transforming landscape of EOs globally and advances in allied technologies have brought in the imperatives of these three new paradigms. These paradigm shifts are as follows:

Paradigm of access—from anywhere and anytime,

Above paradigms imply that seamless integration of EO-based data for generation of information satisfies diverse user needs. The integration should occur across various sensors, platforms, communication media, and user devices across various geographical boundaries and time dimensions. GIS provides necessary environment. All the above have tremendous implications for technology, organization, and policies. In view of such convergence across different users and technological and application regimes, the business models could vary widely. In some cases, user may not even be paying directly for accessing content but may do so for connectivity.

Analyzing Different Paradigms

Paradigm of access from anywhere and anytime: Advances in satellite technologies, including advent of agile platforms in the small and microrange, had improved affordability of high-resolution imaging along with flexibility of imaging the areas of interest more efficiently and rapidly. Furthermore, the lower costs of spacecraft also enable planning and establishment of a fleet or constellation allowing daily revisit of any part of the globe. These imaging capabilities, coupled with improved data rates from satellites, image handling, and analysis, permit users to exercise “imaging at will” any part of the globe and access to information in near real time. This would be extremely valuable for a host of applications such as rapid assessment and assistance during many natural disasters such as cyclone impacts and floods. Complementary approaches such as imaging through UAVs make it possible to achieve resolution of 0.1 m, which can address many local applications. Another development that can be useful in the context of India is diversity of holdings of geospatial data sets both by the government and private sector companies. Implication of shifting toward this paradigm for India is the rapid multiplication of space assets. Enabling policies of attracting private sector to position and operate the infrastructure, with technology license from space agency, would be called for.

A Portfolio of Policy Models

Fundamentally, EO is an enabling field of activity that supports a wide range of applications, with implications to economic, social, environmental, and territorial security aspects as well as sustainable development. The relevance of EO also extends from local to global dimensions. Hence, essentially EO activities are driven by multiple objectives that offer a mix of policy options ranging from those serving strategic goals of a nation to the growth of competition-driven markets. Evolutionary trends in the space and ground-based technologies had brought about integration of EO into a broader geospatial information industry that has been serving needs of mapping, positioning, tracking, navigation, and a wide spectrum of other information and communication-based services in the mobile environment. These have become vital to fuel the engines of economic growth, to provide citizen services, and to assist effective governance by the government organizations.

As experienced in India, the geospatial information has also become an important tool for inclusive development. In this context, the policy elements that were historically developed in different silos are to be integrated and harmonized in view of convergence of diverse technologies leading to many innovations in the services. As far as EO is concerned, two major segments that are relevant for policies are (1) space segment infrastructure that requires specialized technologies and (2) downstream deliverable services and products that serve businesses and governments.

With the foregoing background, a portfolio of policy models is conceptualized as follows:

Industry Perspectives

Government has been a key source for the growth of geospatial services and solutions market in India. Through Remote Sensing Data Policy, the government of India had committed to invest in IRS, considering it as public investment and maintaining continuity of this space infrastructure. The image and terrain data from IRS and other EO satellites are the resources on which India's geospatial industry leverages on. As already indicated, geospatial markets in India are in a growth phase, and hence, the key concern of India' industry is the access to data from any satellite that provides the best input in terms quality, cost, and timely delivery. Hence, industry wishes to see a change in policy that provides direct access to data sources without undue administrative procedures, as they have to encounter under the present policy.

When it concerns the geospatial information, industry sees two challenges, namely—data availability and the geospatial ecosystem. Hence, industry would like to see a National GI Policy that would encourage industry to invest in data creation, allowing the use of elevation and contour data for infrastructure/utilities, and establishing standards. Industry would like to see GIs as part of the work flow. It also demands government to mandate use of geospatial technology in major national programs. Industry desires to see public/private partnership as a delivery model for citizen centric GI services. On regulatory front, industry wants a single agency to regulate geospatial content creation and dissemination with mechanisms for mandatory sharing of GI by national mapping organizations. Making geospatial content as legally valid evidence and giving geospatial industry “infrastructure” status (for tax incentives) had been its other demands. Industry also advocated greater efforts for capacity building and indeed the use of geospatial information tools in the field of education and training.

Policy Framework for Commercial Benefits From India's EO Activities

What is clear from the discussion so far is that in India there are burgeoning market opportunities and high-caliber technical and application strengths built by the national space agency, ISRO. The value-adding industry had also been growing with some unique strengths. There had been a strong government/public sector role hither to, but the tapping of the full potential of commercial benefits would need diversification of private sector role and its investments. These are to be driven through a new paradigm of market development and an imperative of policy renewals.

Thus, commercial benefits from India's EO activities represent a very challenging potential given the needs of a rapidly growing Indian economy and those of societal needs. A vibrant and equitable ecosystem of government and private sector partnership needs to be enabled.

As the world community has access to very high-resolution data from privately owned systems, the Indian Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP-2011) should be further pragmatically fine-tuned and renewed.

The public good nature of remote sensing activities is an integral component to the policy. Hence, public investments are necessary for technological developments, for maintaining national capabilities, and for commitments to continuity of service. However, there is need to remove conflicts of interest between the public and private sectors through a transparent and improved regulatory system.

Indian market ecosystems need policy dynamism and a delivery system to satisfy legitimate demands for high-resolution data and enabling a robust role for industry. A vision for private sector investments for high-quality remote sensing satellites or their services should be enabled for a globally competitive service. ¹⁰

Satellite remote sensing and satellite positioning must provide on-demand imaging, observation, and positioning services—thereby aiding to development of a national GIS, which holistically, in turn, will position GIS DSS that help bridge regional disparities in rural development, poverty reduction, and a host of vital development inputs. Space justification must be in terms of helping build operational and sustaining national disaster and weather resilience meet national security and defense needs—to secure the nation. ¹¹

Policy Renewal Needs

EO capability is a strategic and critical resource for geospatial applications and for triggering the growth of industries through a vast array of downstream commercial activities. As discussed in the foregoing sections, geospatial applications have been supporting a growing number of vital governance and service activities and still they hold vast potential for growth in India. Several emerging technologies such as space-based video, high-throughput satellites, big data analytics, cloud computing, Internet of things (IoT), and others can integrate geospatial technologies to diversify applications.

In cognizance of above potentials, the existing Remote Sensing Data Policy, namely RSDP-2011, needs an urgent renewal in terms of expanding its scope to address commercial benefits of EO as one of the driving objectives of the policy. Furthermore, the Remote Sensing Policy also needs linkage with other policy sets dealing with maps, surveying, positioning, and aerial imaging so that a cohesive policy framework drives the geospatial information sector in India. Second, the present RSDP still does not address the policy variants to distinguish the commercial, civil, and national security sectors. This gap needs to be filled in.

The new paradigms influencing the market environment as discussed earlier demand robust infrastructure in space to cater to diverse spatial, spectral, and temporal capabilities of space platforms and sensors needing private sector role to invest in and maintain a fleet of spacecraft to cater to commercial opportunities and needs. This transitioning of private sector role in India cannot be achieved without necessary policy interventions and risk mitigation measures. For instance, government commitment to buyback data on long-term basis, as practiced hitherto in the United States, could reduce risk of investment and attract competent private sector enterprises to establish Indian satellite systems.

Turning to data access policies, it would be necessary to harmonize the access on par with international norms. There is a need to shift from the policy of restricting access to submeter data to the policy of regulating use by tracing nonbenign usage of the data and knowing the identity of user by technological means. Wherever domestic capacity is not available, access to international sources of data should be facilitated in an efficient and transparent manner. Policy should also dwell on service standards, such as timelines for deliverables and service level guarantees, for the data or products delivered, whether the providers are government bodies or private enterprises.

As industry embarks to operate its own space assets, necessary regulatory provisions for establishing and safeguarding technologies of ground control and data acquisition systems will be necessary to enhance accessibility of GIS data by industry and promoting GI usage at enterprise level.

Since the policies in a dynamic environment need periodic renewal, mechanisms for feedback and for engaging with stakeholders in industry, academia, and government should be established.

Policy should be expanded to address international cooperative and collaborative aspects. Mechanism for evolving and establishing standards for all aspects that affect the generation, transformation, and use of geospatial data should be identified.

Experience has shown that government policies and interventions (such as regulation, incentives, procurement policies, exclusive role definitions, and anchor-tenant roles) had invariably played a major role in triggering investment and private sector participation in this field in case of advanced market economies. Such a policy driver is the need of the hour to expand commercial benefits out of India's EO activities.