New Delhi, July 22 -- On Saturday, we witnessed a historic moment as Skyroot Aerospace made a success of the maiden flight of its rocket Vikram-I to become the first Indian private company to demonstrate such capability. While as Indians we rejoice this moment, it is important to note that the commercial success of private-sector space ventures requires demand generation for payloads lifted into orbit : like satellites.

Among various applications of satellites such as communication, navigation, scientific research and imaging, the last of these is the most interesting in my view as the space industry is still looking for use cases beyond watching adversaries. For most of its history, the business of watching the planet from orbit has bee...