India has a global role to play in space: astronaut Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair

Trivandrum / December 12, 2025

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec. 12: India's inter-planetary missions have a crucial role, not just for the country but for the entire world, as it gives the rest of the world a voice in the future of space exploration, said Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Indian astronaut and test pilot, while addressing the audience at the Huddle Global 2025 at Kovalam today.

Nair said the rest of the world will look up to India to represent them when space powers rewrite the rules for outer space as  plans for colonisation of space goes ahead.

Speaking on the subject of Astronaut Mindset Towards Nation Building, he pointed out that Indians already contribute about 30 percent of the work in the sector, as most leading space research centres like NASA employ hundreds of Indian-origin professionals. "India has to ensure that we develop our own entity in space instead of doing the work for others. Upcoming projects like Gaganyaan and Chandrayaan missions will prove India's capabilities to the rest of the world."

He pointed out there are many areas in space missions themselves that Indian enterprises and startups can contribute to. It goes beyond rockets and satellites, and he exhorted the audience at the largest beachside startup festival organised by the Kerala Startup Mission to look for human-centric development even in space.

"Even now, all manned space missions rely on toilet systems developed by Russians, and they have a monopoly. NASA experts have spent a lot of time trying to find a replacement but still have not been able to come up with a proper alternative," he said. Such technological developments that address problems faced by humans, even in space, should be the hallmark of Indian startups.

He said that like startup founders, astronauts also undertake huge challenges to complete their goals. He said an astronaut has to train themselves in different disciplines including mechanical repair, medical assistance and food preparation to provide a rounded performance while on a mission. "Like that, I advise all startup founders also to acquire multi-disciplinary skills, and that helps them to understand what each team member is trying to do."

Nair also applauded the successes of Indian space scientists, pointing out that in developed countries it is a coalition of well-resourced private sector and government that has worked together to find breakthroughs, while India has done it with limited financial clout and by relying on the excellence of our space experts. "Startups and enterprises have a key role to play in helping India become a global space power," he said.

A proof that Indian startups are taking up that challenge seriously came in the session that preceded Nair's speech. In a country that is more known for its software exporters, KSUM presented four trailblazers, all of whom had made their mark in the hardware sector.

AI semiconductor startup Netrasemi founder Jyothis Indirabhai, Genrobotics founder and CEO Vimal Govind, EyeROV founder and CEO Johns T Mathai, and Jayakrishnan T, CEO and founder of Asimov Robotics, took to the stage to describe their difficult journey and their triumphs. They called on startup founders to find new solutions that will address the needs of the nation and work towards realising the dream of Viksit Bharat, or making India a developed nation, by 2047.

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