ISRO Says No to Privatisation: Agency Will Stay in Charge of India’s Big Space Ambitions
Bengaluru, 7 September: On Sunday, 6 September 2026, the space agency Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) posted a clear statement on X. It said there is no plan to privatize ISRO and no plan to reduce its importance. The message was direct: the recent space reforms are about growing the entire ecosystem, not about sidelining the organization that built India’s space program.
“We wish to categorically state that ISRO will neither be privatized nor will its importance be diminished.”
That’s the line that matters most. ISRO will continue as India’s main institution for advanced research, technology development, national missions, space science, and the really hard frontier work.
Private companies coming in does not mean ISRO steps back. It means ISRO can finally focus more on the next generation of missions while industry handles the mature, repeatable stuff.
Why This Clarification Came Out
A few days earlier, nine employee associations at ISRO wrote to the chairman. They wanted clear answers after IN-SPACE chief Pawan Goenka spoke about industry and PSUs eventually taking over manufacturing of launch vehicles and satellites that are already well established.
Some media reports ran with the idea that ISRO itself was being privatized or slowly reduced to a pure research lab. Staff got worried. The clarification was the agency’s response.
Goenka also posted later the same day. He said ISRO remains the bedrock of the Indian space sector, and its role is not diminishing.
This would allow for large-scale production, commercialization, innovation, and access to global markets, and ISRO’s scientific and technical manpower could focus on advanced research, next-generation technologies, and complex national missions.
This will allow ISRO to devote additional resources and scientific manpower to the next generation of technologies and missions, while the broader ecosystem provides the investment, manufacturing capacity, and scale needed by an expanding national space program, ISRO said.
The government retains tight control of strategic capabilities and critical infrastructure. Private participation has clear limits around national security and safety.