Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Space is emerging as the newest frontier of modern warfare. On Monday, the US acknowledged for the first time that it had deployed what it described as “space control weapons” that are currently orbiting Earth. While military assets have long been deployed beyond the atmosphere, this marks the first acknowledged instance of a weapon being placed in orbit. With countries including Russia and China also potentially developing similar systems, the question is where does India stand in these emerging “Star Wars”, and does it have the means to take down an adversary’s satellites?
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Space has been a military domain since the Cold War. Several countries, including the US, Russia, China and India, have satellites in orbit that support navigation — such as the American GPS and India’s NavIC constellations — as well as communications, intelligence gathering and other functions vital to military operations.
That being said, countries are now racing to develop, build and deploy satellite networks and manoeuvrable spacecraft designed to attack or tamper with other spacecraft.
In 2022, China tested the Shijian-21 satellite, which used a robotic arm to grapple with and alter the orbit of a defunct satellite, a dual-use capability that could potentially be used to reposition or disrupt an adversary’s satellite.
And in 2024, the then Biden Administration had claimed that Russia was developing a “space-based nuclear weapon” that could loiter in space for long durations, then release a burst that would take out satellites around it, news agency Associated Press reported.
Nevertheless, it is the US that has officially acknowledged deploying systems in space that can potentially be used to interfere with other satellites. While details about the “weapons” remain sparse, the US announcement, which, according to Reuters, prompted calls from Russia and China to halt the weaponisation of space, risks sparking a new arms race between Washington, Moscow and Beijing to develop and deploy such systems in orbit.
As far as is publicly known, India is not currently developing or deploying space-based weapons. But does New Delhi have the capability to defend itself against these weaponised satellites?
HOW DOES A SATELLITE-KILLING MISSILE WORK?
Weapons designed to take down an adversary’s satellite are collectively classified as anti-satellite weapons, or ASATs.
The first ASAT programmes were conceived at the height of the Cold War, with both the US and the USSR developing systems designed to target each other’s satellites.
That said, the most straightforward ASAT weapon is a missile. The first successful ASAT test was carried out by the US in 1985. A US Air Force F-15 jet climbed to around 38,100 feet (~11.6 km) before launching an ASM-135 ASAT missile which intercepted and destroyed a scientific satellite at an altitude of roughly 555 kilometres above the Earth.
This type of weapon is known as a kinetic direct-ascent ASAT. The interceptor is launched from a ground, sea or air-based platform, and guided towards a satellite in orbit, destroying it through the force of a high-speed collision.
That said, intercepting an object in orbit is considerably more complex than simply launching a missile towards the sky and relying on chance.
An ASAT system needs powerful radars and optical sensors to track the target, calculate its orbit and predict its position at interception. The missile, which is by itself an endeavour to develop, then has to be guided to that precise point at extremely high speed.
Given the amount of resources and technical know-how needed to develop such a system, only a select few countries have proper ASAT systems. Following the 1985 US test, China destroyed the Fengyun-1C weather satellite in 2007 using a ground-launched interceptor, while Russia destroyed the Kosmos-1408 satellite in a similar test in 2021.
DOES INDIA HAVE THE ABILITY TO SHOOT DOWN SATELLITES WITH MISSILES?
To answer whether India has the ASAT capability to take down an adversary’s satellites, the answer is yes. India demonstrated this capability in 2019 with Mission Shakti, becoming only the fourth country in the world to successfully destroy a satellite in orbit.
Mission Shakti saw the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) launch a Prithvi Defence Vehicle Mark-II three-stage interceptor (a modified version of a pre-existing ballistic missile interceptor) on March 27, 2019 from Odisha’s APJ Abdul Kalam Island. The target was the Microsat-R satellite that had been placed into Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) by an ISRO rocket two months earlier.
The interceptor used a “hit-to-kill” approach, meaning it destroyed the satellite through the force of a direct, high-speed collision rather than using an explosive warhead. Tracking data from range sensors confirmed that the interceptor successfully engaged the satellite in LEO, demonstrating India’s ability to detect, track and precisely intercept a fast-moving object in space.
While no other such tests have been carried out by India ever since (due to concerns like proliferation of space debris), Mission Shakti remains a firm demonstration of the fact that, in the event of a war among the stars, India possesses the know-how and the missiles needed to take down a satellite.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
