“Space is the final frontier that India must conquest, if it has to rightfully emerge as a leading economic and military powerhouse.”

The chinese were the first to develop a rocket in around 1212 AD. In 1883, a Russian schoolmaster, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, first explained the mechanics of how a rocket could fly into space. On 03 Oct 1942, German scientists launched an A-4 rocket, which travelled a distance of 190 km and reached an altitude of over 80 km. Orbital operations started with Soviet Sputnik-1 satellite in 1957. Military use of space started with the launch of an American reconnaissance (recce) satellite in 1960. Since then, military roles and missions utilising space have developed along the lines that air power took in the early twentieth century. Intelligence and space operations came first, followed by offensive and defensive roles. Presently, the space activities are mainly devoted towards reconnaissance, communications, weather assessment and navigation. The development of anti-satellite (ASAT) technologies creates an environment in which civil and military satellites will increasingly come under risk of attack from hostile nations.

By its combined military and space technology, India would be required to contain regional conflicts and prevent unscrupulous exploitation of the Indian Ocean region.

The move from earth to space transits is through the air environment, thereby inherently bringing about a linkage as no space launch or recovery can take place without transiting through the air medium. Any differentiation between the two would be superficial and indefinable. In future, the air and space mediums would provide a seamless environment where Trans Atmospheric Vehicles (TAVs) and re-usable hypersonic vehicles could exploit it freely. In addition, with increased proliferation of Ballistic Missiles and development of potent nuclear warheads, there is a need to extend the current Air Defence capabilities to space to ensure that the threats emanating from the air and space environment can be effectively tackled. The mission of the Indian Air Force should be to defend India through the control and exploitation of air and space.

Roles and Missions of Space Based Assets

Military roles and missions from space could involve the following:-

Combat Roles

• Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD). BMD is the defensive measures taken to intercept ballistic missiles using space.
• Space Control. Space Control operations are those that help in providing freedom of action in space for friendly forces while denying the same to the enemy.
• Force Application. The application of force consists of attacks against terrestrial targets carried out by space based weapons.
• Psychological Operations. Psychological operations are operations designed to bring about changes in the attitude and behaviour of people.

Space Support

This includes activities related to Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, Communication, Navigation, Weather forecasting, Ocean Surveillance and mapping, ELINT, Early Warning and Search & Rescue.

In order to ensure that in future our increased dependence on space does not become a vulnerability, defending space based assets should be an important component of our national security.

India’s Security Environment

In our region, there exists a plethora of space institutions, launch complexes, space based assets, Space Command and Control centres and global space tracking networks. Developments are taking place to put heavy payloads into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Geo-synchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) in the near future. The long term plans of our neighbours include maintaining space stations and manufacturing reusable space shuttles.

These capabilities are complemented by a number of surface to surface cruise and ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles are unmanned guided weapon delivery platforms with one or more rocket stages. During most of their flight path, missile warhead traverses a free flight ballistic trajectory, which for longer range missiles remains above the atmosphere for an extended duration of time. The ranges of these missiles extend from 180 km to over 13000 Km. Our neighbours have the potential to strike at any vital asset of our nation accurately and with little warning. Coupled with potent nuclear weapons, this Ballistic Missile capability portends serious connotations. India’s stated policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons also makes it incumbent that an effective defence against SSMs be put in place.

In our context, flight times of missiles to targets could vary from 10 min to 30 min, depending on the location of the launch site and that of the intended target system. Quick detection and interception becomes mandatory to neutralise these missiles in time. 99 percent of atmosphere hovers within 20 miles of Earth. Rockets are required to go above 28 miles of altitude. The SSMs have three important phases of flight; boost phase, cruise phase and terminal attack phase. The major portion of boost and terminal phase is endo-atmospheric and cruise phase is exo-atmospheric. Therefore, the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) systems designed would need to tackle the ballistic missiles in all the three phases of flight and hence would require an integrated AD network that includes air and space fusion.

The function of Aerospace Defence requires a synergistic integration between the endo-atmospheric and exo-atmospheric capabilities for all incoming threats utilising air and space environment.

The defence against ballistic missiles would include capability to detect the launch of these missiles, tracking them in all the phases of their flight using ground based radars/space based systems and engage and destroy the missiles either in the boost phase (endo-atmospheric), as close to the launch site as possible or in cruise phase (exo-atmospheric) or destroy the missile in the terminal phase (endo or exo-atmospheric). During the missile launch and boost phase, the SSMs have large infra red signatures. Therefore, Early Warning satellites are required to detect and track their launches. During cruise phase, the target’s temperature closely resembles that of its surroundings, hence detection cannot be effected through detection of IR signature. Different forms of surveillance systems are required to track the missile’s path such as ground based X Band radars and Phased Array Upgraded Early Warning Radars (UEWRs).

The technologies presently operationalised are able to provide defence against SSMs only in their terminal stages of attack and that too they are mostly endo-atmospheric. In Mar 2005, the US Govt offered India advanced version of PAC-2 with radar and engagement system used by PAC-3 missiles and Israel Aircraft Industries offered Arrow-2 Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) technology. The function of Aerospace Defence requires a synergistic integration between the endo-atmospheric and exo-atmospheric capabilities for all incoming threats utilising air and space environment. The atmospheric capabilities are already in place with the IAF, but there is a need to integrate the existing and potential space based capabilities for comprehensive air and space defence of the nation.

Aerospace Assets and India

President APJ Kalam has stated that accomplishments in space have traditionally been a barometer of international status, technological prowess and enhanced military capability. Rapid advancements in Information Technology, Internet and Communications are increasingly utilising space based assets. These assets play a decisive role in shaping the outcome of conflicts and are engines that drive economic growths. India and China are likely to be the economic powerhouses of the 21st Century. India is also emerging as a key balancer of Asian stability. By its combined military and space technology, India would be required to contain regional conflicts and prevent unscrupulous exploitation of the Indian Ocean region.

There are 800 active satellites orbiting the earth. The number is expected to grow to 2000 by 2010. India itself is planning to launch Cartosat-2/2A/2B, RISAT-2, INSAT 4A/4B/4C/4D/4E, INSAT-3D, SRE-1, GSAT-4, GSAT (MK-III) and Chandrayan ASTROSAT by 2008. The worldwide revenue from the space sector alone is likely to increase from $800 bn to $3 trillion by 2015. As military and economic power becomes more dependent on space based capabilities, the potential for attack on these capabilities would increase. This would be a low cost covert option for an adversary to inflict damage to our economic and military strengths.

An ASAT weapon called “Parasitic Satellite” has completed ground testing and plans are afoot to conduct its testing in space. These nano satellites could be covertly attached to friendly orbiting satellites.

Analysis of the use of space by US and allied forces during Gulf war 1991, Kosovo operations 1999, Op Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom in 2003 clearly indicates that decisive victories were achieved due to synergistic integration of space based applications especially those related to the employment of airpower. These applications included surveillance; reconnaissance, navigation, secure communications and GPS assisted precision targeting. An opponent possessing even rudimentary anti-satellite capabilities can exert a vast influence on the conduct of warfare. Such capabilities in the hands of Iraq and Serbia would have significantly reduced the asymmetry that the allied forces enjoyed during these conflicts.

Taking lessons from these operations, secret development of anti-satellite weapons is taking place in our neighbourhood. An ASAT weapon called “Parasitic Satellite” has completed ground testing and plans are afoot to conduct its testing in space. These nano satellites could be covertly attached to friendly orbiting satellites. During conflict situations, commands could be sent to these parasitic satellites that would cause interference with the host satellites’ functioning or even lead to its destruction. Small satellites could also be used as space mines that maintain orbital position in the vicinity of their target satellite. Developments are also taking place in High Energy Lasers (HEL) that could be used against satellites in LEO. The laser illumination could cause loss of power due to solar cell degradation or even affect the highly sensitive infra red and CCD detectors in the same band.

In order to ensure that in future our increased dependence on space does not become a vulnerability, defending space based assets should be an important component of our national security. There is also a need to evolve doctrines and procedures for improving space situational awareness and in co-ordinating manoeuvring of satellites in the event that evasive action needs to be taken.