BANGALORE - The Indian Air Force is in for
a dramatic expansion in its role. With the
government setting up an aerospace command, the
IAF will be looking beyond defending India's
airspace and borders to protecting its interests
in outer space as well.
"The Indian Air
Force is in the process of establishing an
aerospace command to exploit outer space by
integrating its capabilities," India's chief of
air staff, Air Chief Marshal Shashi P Tyagi, said
last week, adding that training of "a core group
of
people for the aerospace
command" had started.
Describing India as
"an aerospace power having trans-oceanic reach",
he said the aerospace command would be set up soon
to exploit outer space and to control space-based
assets. While the IAF will require help from the
Indian Space Research Organization in setting up
the aerospace command, the latter will be distinct
from ISRO as it is a military command, Tyagi said.
Besides ISRO, India's Defense Research and
Development Organization and even private
operators in the space arena are expected to play
a role in the setting up of the aerospace command.
The air chief's announcement came a
fortnight after China signaled it is a serious
contender in the race to control space. It used a
medium-range ballistic missile to knock down one
of its own aging weather satellites, which it
launched into orbit in 1999. The test makes China
the third country after Russia and the United
States to display technology to target an object
in space. While American analysts have described
the Chinese test as an "escalation in the arms
race in space", it is the US that has stubbornly
refused to negotiate a ban on the weaponization of
space.
In fact, last year the
administration of US President George W Bush
announced a National Space Policy that rejects
future arms-control agreements that might limit US
flexibility in space and asserts a right to "deny,
if necessary, adversaries the use of space
capabilities hostile to US national interests".
The Chinese might be pushing for a treaty
outlawing the weaponization of space, but their
actions tell a different story, say critics. The
United States, for instance, accused the Chinese
of pointing high-powered lasers at US spy
satellites to test their ability to blind them.
The recent Chinese test did not prompt the
Indian decision to set up an aerospace command.
The idea was in fact mooted by the IAF in the late
1990s, and steps to set up the command have been
taken in the years since.
India's decision
was prompted by the "phenomenal growth of its
space program in recent years, with its
ever-growing reliance on space-based
communications satellites that sustains its
information and communication technology assets",
Lawrence Prabhakar, research fellow at the
maritime security program at the Institute for
Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore, told
Asia Times Online.
India's assets in space
are considerable, and with its ambitious space
program extending beyond launching satellites to
putting an Indian on the moon in the coming
decade, these assets are poised to grow
multi-fold. "And these need to be protected,"
stressed Prabhakar.
Unlike the space
programs of other countries that emerged from
existing ballistic-weapons research, India's
program was rooted in developmental objectives and
set up with the eventual goal of having
satellite-launch capabilities. India's space
programs and its satellites have developmental
applications such as mass education, weather
forecasting and disaster management,
communications and navigation.
Its
satellites bring in big money, too. India's
substantial achievements in remote sensing have
made it a major commercial player. Last year,
Antrix, ISRO's commercial arm, brought in more
than US$500 million - more than half the operating
budget for all of ISRO. It hopes to corner 10% of
the market in less than a decade.
India's
space assets are a vital part of its defense as
well. "In the Indian military context, the
revolution in military affairs is evident in the
shift to net-centric warfare operations,"
Prabhakar said, adding: "Much of the country's
defense operations are space-based sensors and
depend on space-based surveillance, reconnaissance
and tracking."
According to Prabhakar,
"For an assured second-strike capability,
satellites are required to guide India's ballistic
missiles. An assured retaliatory nuclear strategy
should have effectiveness and credibility. India's
satellites are thus the most vital assets in
space-based tracking, reconnaissance missions that
ensure the effectiveness and credibility of the
nuclear deterrent, and hence their need for
protection is indispensable."
India's
communication network would be broken, its
security severely jeopardized and its capacity to
defend itself against aggression damaged
immeasurably if its satellites were to be knocked
out. And it is not just the hostile intentions of
other countries that pose a threat to India's
space assets and therefore its security. Debris in
space is as lethal as an advertent attack
For instance, the Chinese have littered
space with hundreds of thousands of bits of debris
- small and big - with their blowing of the
weather satellite to smithereens last month. This
debris will continue to hurtle through space for
years. It poses a threat to orbiting satellites
and endangers missions into space and the moon.
India is planning to send an Indian into space by
2014 and to the moon by 2020.
The decision
to set up an aerospace command is bound to trigger
opposition from critics of India's space program
that this is needless expenditure for a country
that confronts serious problems of poverty and
hunger. But India's achievements in space have
cost a fraction of the space budget of other
countries. At $16 billion, America's space budget
is 18 times that of ISRO. Indian analysts believe
that, like the space program, the aerospace
command can be set up on a relatively small
budget.
There is concern too that the
setting up of an aerospace command is a step
toward entering the arms race in space. However,
India's aerospace command appears at this juncture
to be only a defensive command.
"India's
immediate priorities would be to develop
countermeasures, but it has a long way to go in
developing a robust offensive capability,"
Prabhakar said. "An offensive capability would
require among other things ground-based lasers to
shoot down enemy assets in space and the possible
launch of a vertical-ascent anti-satellite weapon
that would imply huge outlays in resources and
dedicated research and technology."
India's offensive capability in space
might be a long way off and India might be opposed
to the weaponization of space. But will this
position change if the arms race in space heats
up?
By setting up an aerospace command,
India is putting in place a shield to protect its
interests and ambitions in space. When the sword
will come up remains to be seen.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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