Moon Added Billions for Indian Space Stocks. Next Stop – Sun!

Kotak Insights | Date 31/08/2023

It was a moment to seize when ISRO last week released a video of the Chandrayaan-3 mission's rover 'Pragyan' rolling down from the lander 'Vikram' to the lunar surface.

That was definitely the key highlight of the month gone by. The success of Chandrayaan-3 proved that India was at par with other nations when it came to space technology. Even ahead of many developed countries in some sense.

Years ago, India didn’t stand a chance to compete with any country when it came to space technology. The government didn’t spend too much on the country’s space programmes.

While the country’s space spending as a percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) is still relatively lower compared to the US and Russia, India is way ahead of many developed peers in the Group of 20 (G20) nations.

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And just when you thought that Chandrayaan-3 was the ultimate endgame, India is ready to launch a new capsule in the solar system.

India to take a closer look at the Sun

Based on its findings from the Chandrayaan-3 mission, it’s confirmed that there’s some presence of sulphur on the Moon's surface near the south pole.

Apart from that, there were some elements of aluminium, calcium, ferrous, chromium, titanium, manganese, and even silicon.

Now, India wants to find out more and is all set to launch its next big mission – Aditya L1.

ISRO announced this week that it will launch its first spacecraft to survey the Sun on 2nd September.

Aditya L1, which will be launched from Sriharikota, will approximately take a travel distance of 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth. The rocket would take a little over 4 months to reach the solar system.

It’ll contain seven payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere, and the outermost layers of the Sun.

Primarily, Aditya-L1 could help with the detailed study of space weather, essentially solar wind.

Mind you, this is an even more important mission than Chandrayaan-3, as not many countries that have conducted trials near the sun, have been able to find anything significant.

Aditya-L1, if successful (fingers crossed), will provide inputs on coronal heating, coronal mass ejection, pre-flare and flare activities, and dynamics of space weather, among other things.

India’s inroads into the Space Industry

In a matter of just a few years, India and the entire team built a rocket that created history. That was deemed impossible by many.

Perhaps it was the continuous effort India put in to change the trajectory of the entire space industry.

Years ago, the current US President Joe Biden was among the politicians who denied India much-needed cryogenic technology to power its rockets.

Coming to the current situation…

As Aditya L1 heads over to the sun, Indians all over the world will witness history and a new era will begin. This is India’s first solar mission to the sun and it sounds bombastic.

Reports suggest that the government is already discussing ideas and moves to launch the space policy.

Additionally, there are over 100 space startups in India in the upstream and downstream segment of the space industry. But these startups are yet to mature and the markets may need to be patient to ride the boom. In the meantime, one can look for some key technology associate companies of the spacetech startups.

All in all, if India continues on the current path of progress when it comes to space technology, there is a high likelihood that numerous space related products will be manufactured and early investors in space stocks will be the ones to benefit most.

If you’re looking to venture into this sector, watch out for the companies that supply components for aerospace missiles, and or are primarily engaged in some or the other way with India’s space missions.

Some of the companies directly or indirectly involved in this space are Larsen & Toubro, Mishra Dhatu Nigam, Data Patterns, HAL, etc. Make sure to track these companies in the coming time.

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We would love to hear from you - what space trends are you excited about? And which space stocks are you tracking?

Let us know in the comments section below.

Until then - Happy Investing!

Sources: Kotak Securities, Economic Times, NASA Database

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