APOGEE STAFF
India has been honing its space know-how for more than six decades, starting with the launch of a sounding rocket delivered by bicycle and graduating to orbital missions around the moon and Mars. Now, India is on the verge of joining an exclusive group of three — the United States, Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — as the only nations to send a crew into space.
India’s ascension as a space power took a sharp turn in January 2007, when the PRC fired a missile into space and blasted a defunct satellite into thousands of pieces, flouting a 22-year-old moratorium on anti-satellite (ASAT) testing and creating the largest orbital debris field in history. U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, speaking in January 2023, called the PRC test a “pivot point” for U.S. defense and it was seen as a precursor for the creation of the U.S. Space Force he now commands.
For India, a nation that had been pursuing largely peaceful uses of outer space, the shot served as a “wake-up call,” security analysts there said. Already feuding with the PRC and Chinese ally Pakistan over shared international borders, India set to work on developing capabilities to defend itself in this new frontier. One result: India conducted its own ASAT test in orbit 12 years later and has left the door open to continuing this work.
“If you looked at our defense policy earlier, a lot of it was focused on Pakistan,” Arpit Chaturvedi, chief executive officer of the India-based think tank Global Policy Insights, told Apogee. “Now, a lot of it is focused on China. And when we look to countering China, space is going to be one place where China may seek a relative advantage, and we as a country are focused on matching China if not exceeding them as soon as possible.” Other nations share in this sense of urgency, heightened by declarations from the Chinese Communist Party congress in October 2022 that the PRC will pursue “comprehensive national security” above all else and develop a “fortress economy” aimed at preparing for geopolitical conflict. The 2022 National Defense Strategy from the U.S. Department of Defense identified the PRC as the nation’s “pacing challenge,” a phrase often repeated by U.S. space defense leaders.
India has reached out to a host of international partners to boost its space capabilities even as it remains fiercely committed to its own autonomy — one remaining echo from the nation’s role as a founder in 1961 of the global Non-Aligned Movement, Chaturvedi said. Labeled today as a “movement adrift” by the Council on Foreign Relations, the loosely organized group started with 120 member states who came together out of a shared refusal to choose sides in the Cold War.
The focus on space partnerships comes as India is rising in prominence on the world stage. It has surpassed its one-time colonial ruler the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth-largest economy and is poised to overtake the PRC as the world’s most populous country, while its capital New Delhi played host to the Group of 20 in 2023 for the world’s premier summit on economic cooperation. What’s more, in late 2024, the Gaganyaan mission is scheduled to place three astronauts, known as gaganauts, into Earth orbit for three days on an Indian-made Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LVM3) rocket. Gagan is a Sanskrit word for sky. The mission shows India is punching above its weight in space: The nation ranks No. 6 for its spacefaring capabilities on a list compiled by the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs.
India has signed space cooperation documents with 60 countries, entering into 11 new or enhanced agreements in fiscal 2022 alone, according to the annual report from the India Department of Space. Among the nation’s most important space relationships, Chaturvedi said, are with Australia, Japan, Russia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the U.S. In April 2022, top diplomats and defense leaders from India and the U.S. signed a space situational agreement, described by U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) as an entry point into a deeper “security cooperation framework.” India Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said at the time, “Our increased cooperation will be critical to maintain peace and security and to ensure free access to global commons.” In June 2023, following a visit to the White House by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India and the U.S. announced they would “set a course to reach new frontiers across all sectors of space cooperation.” In one of a number of technology and defense agreements signed, India joined the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, advancing a common vision of space exploration for the benefit of all humankind.
As a U.S. partner in space defense, and in other areas of defense, India likely will keep more distance than countries with whom USSPACECOM works most closely, Chaturvedi said — among them, Australia, Canada and the U.K. “In order to maintain its own strategic autonomy, India will not get into those sort of defense alliances with the U.S. or with any other country, qualitatively,” he said. “But I think if you look at the partnership intensity, that will probably be five-fold what it is right now, by, let’s say, 2050.” PRC threats also explain growing space defense relations between India and its fellow members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue — Australia, Japan and the U.S., said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, with the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, writing in a September 2022 commentary for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Quad nations, all democracies in the Indo-Pacific region, work together on security, economic and health issues. Like many nonaligned nations, India has pushed for legally binding mechanisms on space governance rather than the behavioral norms favored by the U.S. and others who see binding measures as difficult to achieve. India’s approach may be changing, though, Rajagopalan said: “The growing fear of China has forced it to shed some of its hesitancies and work with the Quad on developing space norms and regulations.”
India has signaled it will work in space with nearly any nation that will help it “close the capability gap with China or do whatever helps India’s developmental agenda internally,” Chaturvedi said. Those nations could include both the U.S. and Russia, adversaries since Russia’s partial annexation and later invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. and the NATO alliance have led efforts to unite global opposition to the Russian aggression, helping arm Ukraine, imposing sanctions on Russia and securing two lopsided votes before the U.N. General Assembly decrying the invasion. But space pioneer Russia is India’s longtime launch patron, as well as the nation’s major supplier of defense weaponry and of the relatively cheap oil that helps fuel India’s economic development. India abstained from the U.N. vote on Ukraine in February 2023. Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj told the General Assembly, “We will always call upon dialogue and diplomacy as the only viable way out.” Said Chaturvedi, “Despite the fact that Russia has become this global pariah right now, if you’re going to give us a good deal that serves our national interest, we’re going to take it up.”
Still, Chaturvedi said, India is moving away from Russia as a space partner for more practical reasons: It’s an unreliable partner. “We have, a number of times, tried the Russian route and failed because of delays in the delivery of critical components, missing deadlines, etc.,” he said. “The U.S. seems to be a more stable partner, along with the countries of the Quad and the UAE. Most of the Russian partnerships now involve legacy capabilities — tanks, aircraft — which is still huge. But very rapidly, we’re realizing that we’re in a place where Russia would play a much smaller role as a partner in India’s defense.” As if to illustrate the growing separation, Russia’s first mission to the moon since 1976 crashed in August 2023 – just four days before India successfully landed its Chandrayaan-3 lunar explorer. Both spacecraft targeted the moon’s south pole region. Russia’s shortcomings have helped drive India to work toward greater auton-omy in space operations. One example: India’s space agency and its commercial arm came to the rescue of London-based OneWeb in October 2022 after a deal for Russia to launch the company’s internet satellites fell through. The rocket was on the launchpad when Russia demanded that the U.K. government pull out as a partner. The demand was refused. The India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and its commercial arm stepped in, and 36 replacement satellites were orbited successfully from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India’s east coast, the news website Spaceflight Now reported. It was the first commercial payload for LVM3, India’s most powerful rocket. OneWeb’s major shareholder is the Indian conglomerate Bharti Enterprises Ltd.
The PRC’s ASAT test that served as a wakeup call for India 16 years ago, putting it squarely on the path toward space defense, still resonates. Soon after, the government set up the Defence Space Agency and the Defence Space Research Organisation. In March 2019, at an altitude and angle designed to limit debris, an Indian ballistic missile struck and destroyed a microsatellite launched as a target a few weeks earlier. Indian leaders did not mention the PRC in announcing the ASAT test, dubbed Mission Shakhti, but a former foreign minister quoted by the Carnegie Endowment said Mission Shakhti “redresses the India-China strategic balance.” Indian media reported at the time that Prime Minister Modi declared the nation had joined the elite club of space powers. Since then, the PRC and Russia have continued developing their anti-satellite capabilities. Russia gave no warning before it destroyed a defunct satellite with an ASAT missile in November 2021, creating more than 1,500 pieces of trackable space debris and forcing astronauts aboard the International Space Station to take shelter in their transport vehicle. ASAT testing is as old as space exploration itself, beginning with U.S. efforts launched during the late 1950s in response to the Soviet Union’s orbiting of Sputnik. The Soviets, and later, the Chinese, conducted testing, too. India is the fourth nation to reach the grim milestone. Today, most nations are following the lead of the U.S. in pushing a moratorium on anti-satellite missile testing that leaves long-lasting debris. In a vote by the U.N. in January 2023, 154 favored a ban, eight opposed it and 10 abstained, according to the news website Breaking Defense. Still, the U.S. was the only ASAT-capable nation to cast a yes vote. The PRC and Russia voted no, and India, where debate continues on the issue, abstained.
The U.N. vote demonstrates India’s willingness to go its own way despite the positions taken by those nations with whom it has established space and defense relationships. “India as a country is extremely hesitant to join a camp, so to say,” Chaturvedi said. On the ASAT vote, he said, “Initially, there may be pushback, but eventually it is something that we think is better for us and something that we think will strengthen the rules-based world order rather than weaken it.” On one side of the debate in India are those who call ASAT missiles harmful to the sustainability of the space environment and detrimental to the security of all nations, said Pranav R. Satyanath, a research analyst at The Takshashila Institution, writing in February 2023 for The Space Review website. On the other side, Satyanath said, are scholars and analysts who want India to resume ASAT testing in the belief that a ban would keep the country from developing capabilities that deter aggression by adversaries in space. Those making this argument liken ASAT capabilities to nuclear power, with the same balance of power considerations, saying that to have them deters others from using them. India, the PRC and Pakistan are among the world’s seven nuclear nations. “India has been, so far, a very reliable nuclear power in the world,” Chaturvedi said.
Among the challenges facing India in developing space capabilities is paying for development and clearing the way for privatization, Chaturvedi said. The government opened the space sector to private industries in 2020, and the country now has some 150 commercial space enterprises. But up to 90% of the market remains in control of ISRO. One reason is a daunting web of government regulations and restrictions, he said. Many of them are necessary because of national security concerns: Advancements in space can be “dual purpose,” valuable to both defense and scientific/civil sectors. At the same time, ISRO faces calls to collaborate more with the Ministry of Defence, Chaturvedi said.
What’s more, companies rely on government grants for development of space capabilities and the money available took a hit as India prioritized its health care and the social safety net. Chaturvedi said he expects to see more funding after May 2024 parliamentary elections. The nation’s legislative body learned in February 2022 that 75 startups have registered with a government science and technology portal and reforms are under way allowing ISRO to extend facilities and expertise to private entities. Developing capabilities in space is a matter of national pride among the people of India, Chaturvedi said, urged on through government public relations campaigns. A movie about the Mangalyaan mission that orbited Mars from 2014 to 2022 proved especially popular. The Mars orbiter appears on an Indian 2,000-rupee bank note (about $25). How quickly India can move forward in jump-starting its space capabilities remains a question given the domestic priorities, Chaturvedi said. At the same time, he said, the political will is strong for surmounting all these challenges: “There’s a clear consensus that space defense allocations will increase.”