Having set up a dedicated Strategic Support Force four years ago to handle space and cyberspace operations, China is moving towards a space station with military applications in the near future. India, in sharp contrast, has not even approved a full-fledged Aerospace Command that the armed forces have been demanding for almost a decade now

by Rajat Pandit

NEW DELHI: India’s first-ever anti-satellite missile test on Wednesday was in direct response to rapid advances made in the military space arena by China, which has had “counter-space” capabilities as a thrust area and tested its own A-Sat weapon against a “low-earth orbit (LEO)” weather satellite in January 2007.

While improving upon its already extensive space-based intelligence and reconnaissance abilities, the People’s Liberation Army also has several projects underway for strong counter-space capabilities ranging from “direct-ascent kinetic kill missiles” to directed-energy laser weapons and satellite jammers to destroy or degrade an adversary’s space assets during a conflict.

Having set up a dedicated Strategic Support Force four years ago to handle space and cyberspace operations, China is moving towards a space station with military applications in the near future.

India, in sharp contrast, has not even approved a full-fledged Aerospace Command that the armed forces have been demanding for almost a decade now. The PM Narendra Modi government only recently agreed to set up a small tri-Service Defence Space Agency.

“This has to change now. India cannot keep on missing the bus. We should have the capability to counter China and its rapidly expanding A-Sat capabilities, multiple military satellites, launch-on-demand nano-satellites and the like. Space and cyberspace, after all, are now the fourth and fifth dimensions of modern warfare after the traditional domains of land, air and sea,” an official said. Effective A-Sat weapons can “blind and deafen” an adversary’s military forces by taking out satellites vital for surveillance, missile early-warning, precision-targeting and other such purposes.

There are an estimated 320 military satellites orbiting the Earth with the US leading the pack with over 140 followed by Russia (80) and China (35). India has only two dedicated military satellites in the shape of the naval GSAT-7 and the IAF’s GSAT-7A, though it also uses “dual-use” remote sensing ones for military purposes.

Despite having an enviable civilian space programme, India has been hesitant about militarising the final frontier.

In 2010, the defence ministry had come out with a 15-year ‘Technology Perspective and Capability Road map’ that dwelt on the need to develop A-Sat weapons “for electronic or physical destruction of satellites in both LEO (2,000 km above earth’s surface) and GEO-synchronous orbits”.

But these parts were quietly deleted in subsequent road maps. Similarly, though the “building blocks” for development of A-Sat capabilities were present in spin-offs from the Agni-V missile and ballistic missile plans, the option to test a satellite-killing missile was never exercised till Wednesday.