Bridging the Gap: How ISRO Can Attract India's Next Generation of Space Innovators
From Outreach to Opportunity: Essential Improvements for a Future-Ready ISRO Workforce
Almost every month, I see another post about IITians walking out of the ISRO interview after looking at the salary. The truth is much more nuanced. As an aerospace engineer from IIT Bombay who was not even allowed to sit for ISRO placements, I wanted to bring my opinion on improvements that can prompt more IIT graduates to join our beloved space agency.
Introduction
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is one of the government organisations respected by the larger Indian public. For a young country like India, having a space programme is significant. The citizens not being against it at large is a cherry on top. But this was not always true. Only recently have space activities and ISRO become known in households. Until 2008, when Chandrayaan 1 was launched, all I remember about ISRO was learning facts about which satellite was launched this month for my general knowledge class in school. It was not inspiring but rather an extra piece of knowledge to be crammed in.
ISRO, on the other hand, has been achieving great heights since its inception by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai in the year 1969. Dr. Sarabhai was a visionary. His imprints are left in a wide variety of industries in India. Space is the biggest one, as recognized by him being the father of the Indian space program. He wanted our space program to help improve the daily lives of common citizens by providing communication, weather updates, etc. This is why ISRO, though not much younger than NASA, never ventured into space exploration until 2008 with Chandrayaan-1.
“He was not worried about the so-called brain-drain from the country. On the contrary, he used to encourage young people to go abroad for learning new sciences and new technologies. He was very sure of getting them back; he had vision, he knew what these young scientists wanted, and he was able to create a situation and an atmosphere that encouraged these young people to return home and contribute towards the country's welfare."
Mr. Praful Bhavsar is the author of these lines in Dr. Sarabhai’s biography: Vikram Sarabhai: The Man and the Vision. I have always focused on the words ‘encourage young people to go abroad.’ He created an atmosphere for these students to return. ISRO is no longer doing that. As an aerospace student from India, studying in the US, I am always asked if I would work for ISRO, and my answer is no. There are many factors to it. Having explained them many times, I felt it was better to write them out to the community, and I hope it will start the debate to bring change. There have been some debates in the past, but those seemed fueled by emotion rather than rationality.
ISRO has improved in many aspects in the past few years since I thought about writing this article in 2021. The website has readily accessible information on how to join and the various pathways. The social media presence has improved considerably, though it fizzles down from time to time. ISRO recognizes past achievements and celebrates them on social media. There have been considerable improvements in space contests for all students from middle school to undergraduates. ISRO’s collaboration with other space agencies and international conferences has also increased. All these positives make me hopeful for the future at ISRO.
Joining ISRO
Let's start by asking how one can join ISRO. There are multiple options depending on your education level. As an aerospace engineering student, I would only talk about STEM jobs. I am aware of the following pathways to ISRO:
On-campus placements in IIT, NIT, and IIST
ICRB Examination
Vacancies at different centers
PhD scholars’ live register
Post-doctoral fellowships at PRL, IIST, etc.
As mentioned on the FAQ page on the ISRO website, ISRO only hires based on requirements. If ISRO requires a combustion engineer to work on solid motors, they will hire for that post. While this is good, the problem arises when they hire without considering the applicant’s background. Especially during campus placements, you could have spent your 4-5 years of bachelor’s building a profile in rocket propulsion design, but then been hired to do mechanical failure analysis. Similarly, the ICRB examination doesn’t consider your background profile either.
I don't know about the vacancies at different centers as advertised on the website, but these seem to be only for technical assistant/scientific assistant posts with a diploma, a BSc., or an equivalent degree. I haven’t looked into this option in depth.
The PhD scholars’ live register, while a good idea at its base, has its own flaws. Scholars are expected to register on the portal and then await the possibility that someday they will be contacted by ISRO for a job. What are you expected to do in the meantime? If someone starts another job and is contacted after 2-3 years, why should they leave their existing job to join ISRO?
Finally, the post-doctoral fellowships are done right. I do not have any major gripes with these opportunities. However, what are these fellows expected to do once the fellowship period ends? I could not find any future career for post-doctoral fellows to join ISRO. These fellows would have the highest experience and should be added to ISRO’s career progression line. This brings us to the next point: career progression.
Career Progression
ISRO’s website clearly states the career progression strategy. Let’s look at the one for the Scientist/Engineer position.
You can only be promoted to a higher post based on years at ISRO. Sure, there are reports and interviews, but you are still constrained by years. A person could work with minimal effort and get promoted after 4/6 years. There is no motivation for a good performance. A friend of mine, who joined ISRO through campus placement, said that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the motivated workforce.
In this current economy, people change jobs within 2-3 years for promotion to a higher salary tier. All my colleagues from IITs are used to this. Young professionals want rewards for their motivation and hard work, not for their loyalty to staying at a company for their entire career. ISRO must start hiring at any tier and change its old career progression model. A professor with years of experience should be able to join at a higher tier, and a motivated scientist with higher performance should be able to be promoted more efficiently.
Language Alienation
Most ISRO centers are located in southern India. There are many good reasons for this, like the vicinity of the coastal region for launch. India’s diversity of languages is vast. Each smaller region within a state speaks a different dialect of various languages. Most of the center's workforce is populated by locals. They would interact in the local language.
While working on my master’s thesis, I visited Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) several times. I realized that I never needed to know the local language while working. Everyone could easily communicate with each other for work. The problem arose during lunch and tea breaks. Everyone seemed to talk to each other in the local languages, and I felt alienated. It felt like I would never be able to get close to my colleagues.
I understand that ISRO is not responsible for this. I don’t think there is a simple solution to such a large, nationwide problem. Hopefully, with more regional centers, everyone in the country will have a possible center at which to work. One reason this alienation is amplified is related to my next concern: secrecy.
Secrecy
ISRO is a public organization run with taxpayers' money. It is also one of the few civil space agencies in the world. I understand space has defense uses, and international concerns always highlight secrecy for important missions. However, ISRO is too secret.
Whenever I visited ISRO, we could not take any of our devices (mobile or laptop) inside. Moreover, the group we visited only had access to the internet on one device. I am primarily a modelling and simulation engineer. While writing any code, I must be referring to forums like Stack Overflow 100s of times daily. No internet access bars me from doing that. This is only one of the many problems that arise with this secrecy.
I do not understand the point behind this level of security. I have visited NASA centers as a foreign national with all my devices on me. Of course, there are limits to when you can take pictures. You are not allowed to enter any building or room without keycard access. Therefore, they maintain a level of security, but ISRO goes beyond what is necessary. It borders on being too restrictive.
Indian Space Ecosystem
While these three points: no interest/resume-based recruitment, slow career progression, and unwarranted secrecy, have made me averse to joining ISRO, there are a few more overall space research and industry ecosystem issues that need to be addressed.
The Indian Space Ecosystem, for a long time, only consisted of ISRO and industries partnered with ISRO. With InSpace and the government push since 2020, now, we have a lot of startups in space technology and education. One key component still missing is research and development at universities and other national labs. Especially in the field of planetary science, universities need to learn from the astrophysics community and build a similar network of labs and research groups. A rich interconnected ecosystem with industry, startups, universities, and national labs is really important for the growth of a healthy individual, as these provide more job opportunities, and they all build on each other.
ISRO, in recent years, has also made advances towards this ecosystem development, along with a push towards start-ups. There are many more conferences in India, such as GLEX and the Indian Space Congress. The RESPOND basket and Research Areas in Space documents are being updated regularly. Hopefully, this means ISRO is serious about research and development with academia, as my experience of working with ISRO in academia during my master’s was not very good.
Improvements
To conclude the article, I do believe ISRO has improved on a lot of fronts in the past few years, but there is so much more room for improvement.
Recruitment
The biggest need of the hour is to change the recruitment structure. The ISRO workforce is already depleting. Programs like NASA’s Pathways and recruitments at higher levels based on experience need to be implemented. While there are now competitions like CANSAT and Rocketry which promote students to learn rocket science, if you are going to recruit based on an exam, they are not going to help.
Be more Open
It is high time now. With the Gaganyaan program and more international collaborations like NISAR and LUPEX, ISRO needs to learn from other organizations and improve outreach. Being a secret organization under the broad brush of ‘security’ is not acceptable. We are one of the few space agencies that have a very rich history. Let’s start to share it. Make more documentaries and content to share historical milestones. Share information for all upcoming missions and those in development. Also, make sure they are well-made with good graphics and rendering. Otherwise, no matter how many certificates you give away for ISRO merchandise, everyone would wear NASA t-shirts only.
Involve the different communities
Planetary Science, Planetary Defense, Astrophyics, Heliophysics, Earth Science, Space Domain Awareness, Space Law, Space Architecture, Space Technology, … the list keeps getting longer. There are so many subfields that all come under the purview of the Indian Space Research Organization. Let’s build these communities. Have regular conferences to share research and ideas while building networks.
ISRO has achieved major milestones despite all these issues creeping into the system. If we can manage to overcome them, India has the potential to take the lead in space science and technology research and development.