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New Delhi - As India celebrated becoming the first Asian nation to reach Mars, SM Vaidya, head of business at conglomerate Godrej's aerospace division that made the spacecraft's engine and thruster components, sounded surprisingly downbeat.
The mission was, indeed, a major achievement, he said, and one of which the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) should be proud.
But a single trip to Mars was not enough to sustain a promising yet relatively small industry, he added, and Isro should be doing more to foster it.
"Unless they fly more, they will not buy more from us," Vaidya said shortly after news broke on Wednesday that Mangalyaan, Hindi for "Mars craft", had entered into orbit around the red planet about 10 months after launching.
"How many Mars missions are you going to have?"
India's successful mission, completed on a shoestring budget of $74m, has boosted its prestige in the global space race and, back on Earth, raised the profile of Indian companies involved in the project.
Missions
But Godrej and some other firms are frustrated at what they say is the slow execution of projects and lack of government support, which are hampering India's efforts to compete with China and Russia as a cheaper option for launching satellites.
Isro did not reply to questions for this article.
The Mangalyaan was built in 15 months with two-thirds of its parts manufactured by domestic firms such as Godrej & Boyce and India's largest engineering company, Larsen & Toubro.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he wants to expand India's 50-year-old space programme. The government has increased funding for space research by 50% to almost $1bn this financial year.
But the programme is still small, and the small number of launches limits the growth potential of private companies that supply them.
Between 2007 and 2012, Isro accomplished about half of its planned 60 missions, government data showed. The government cited "development complexity" as the reason for the delay in some missions.
Between 2012 and 2017 the target is 58 missions. The agency has completed 17 missions so far, and Isro did not say why the number remained low.
Expertise
Some company executives and experts do not see that changing any time soon, with the absence of heavy rocket launchers, too few launch facilities and bureaucratic delays hampering growth.
Larsen & Toubro, which manufactured motor casings and the antenna for India's Mars probe, is more positive about working with the Isro, saying it has opened doors to other commercial opportunities.
Space projects have helped enhance its expertise in other sectors such as defence and aerospace, including missile technology and welding, said MV Kotwal, president of L&T's heavy engineering division.
"Volumes of business [from Isro] have been relatively small, of the order of $40m over the last five years, but the technological fallout in terms of high-precision manufacture has been considerable," Kotwal said.
L&T has been working with Isro for over four decades and between 1% - 5% of its heavy engineering division's revenues come from Isro.
Godrej wanted to explore opportunities with US and European space programmes after its success in India, but Vaidya said government-to-government clearances posed a hurdle.
"We don't want to be only dependent on Isro," he said.
Now Godrej plans to shift focus from space technology to the aviation export industry, catering to the likes of Boeing and Airbus and trimming Isro's contribution to their aerospace business to 40% from 70% currently.
India's space programme began in the early 1960s and the country has launched 30 Indian and 40 foreign satellites.
The programme developed mainly after Western powers imposed sanctions following India's first nuclear weapons test in 1974.
Still, it remains a small player in a global space industry estimated to be worth more than $300bn a year.
