Aerospace industries in Taiwan and India can complement each other, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) executive Lewis Chen (陳立偉) said in an interview.
Five India-based space start-ups attended last month’s Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition.
Indian space enterprises were participating “as a team at scale” for the first time, said Chen (陳立偉), who is general director of the ITRI’s Commercialization and Industry Service Center.
Photo: CNA
The government-backed institute has invited 18 India-based space start-ups to Taiwan for exchanges since 2023, including the five at the exhibition, Chen said.
Two memorandums of understanding (MOU) were signed between Taiwanese companies and Indian start-ups at the exhibition, adding to others since 2023, focusing on areas such as small satellites, launch vehicles and artificial intelligence space applications, he said.
Many of the MOUs were signed by Taiwanese firms seeking to make use of Indian launch services, Chen said, adding that others focused on the fundamentals of partnerships.
“The first type [of MOU] is about working out how we can work with you, how we fit together and how we move forward so we complement each other,” he said.
For example, Hex20, an Indian start-up focused on small satellite platforms, signed an MOU with TaiCrystal International Technology Co, a Taiwanese company specializing in space power chips, to test solar-cell applications on a Hex20 satellite to launch soon, he said.
The two companies would work together to collect data on an upcoming mission to improve their products and expand commercial opportunities in space, Chen said.
More cooperation is likely across supply chains, he added.
“Taiwan has a comprehensive supply chain in semiconductors, communication modules and radio-frequency components,” he said.
With a solid hardware base provided by Taiwanese vendors, Indian space companies, which are strong in later-stage processes such as launches and integrated applications — can pursue cost efficiency and faster product iteration, he said.
“We’re stronger in foundational industries,” Chen said, adding that more than 95 percent of Taiwan’s space-tech revenue is from ground communications equipment, which is related to information and communications technology.
“India, by contrast, derives about 75 percent of its [space-tech] revenue from applications. That marks a big difference,” he said.
In the past few years, India’s space industry has grown quickly with strong government support, he said.
Milestones include the Indian Space Research Organisation landing its Chandrayaan-3 craft on the moon’s south pole, which made the South Asian nation the fourth in the world to soft-land an uncrewed craft there, he said.
The country’s application-led space market has also had advances from start-ups such as Agnikul Cosmos, which developed the world’s first single-piece 3D-printed rocket engine, successfully conducting a launch using it last year, he said.
In terms of challenges in Taiwan-India space exchanges, Chen said some Indian space start-ups find that their plans stall in Taiwan because the space-industry regulatory framework is still under development.
While India has an orbital-class spaceport and is building another for launches of small satellites, Taiwan has only one launch site, which is for academic and research use, and building an orbital facility elsewhere is likely to face environmental restrictions, he said.
Asked if Taiwan is falling behind, he said that Taiwan and India are on different paths.
Taiwan’s more deliberate pace means it prioritizes a solid hardware base and, as a result, has strong integration capabilities, while India’s faster pace has, after many launches, pushed down launch costs and expanded the range of services, Chen said.
“That actually works out well. If we are the same, we compete; since we are different, we coordinate and cowork,” he added.
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