Presentation by
Ajey Lele
at
ORF, New Delhi
on
March 17 , 2015
India &
Major Space‐faring Nations
A Collaborative Agenda
Key Players…Friends of India… • India space programme started with launching sounding rockets of American, British, French and Soviet design
• Essentially space‐faring nations which have assisted India are the US, France and erstwhile USSR
• Present and future space‐collaboration for India would involve major players like US, Japan, Russia, ESA
• Israel is an important player
• Would India ever collaborate with China? Phases of Engagement • Early years of development
• During the period of Technological Apartheid
• Post Indo‐US Nuclear deal Fields of Engagements • Technology Assistance and Technology Transfer
• Off the shelf products
• Launch facilities, Ground Infrastructure
• Training
• Joint programmes
• Multilateral mechanisms, Legal regimes
• Space Collaboration as a subset of Strategic Relationship/Engagement
• Mechanism to influence, soft power! Indo‐US Space Collaboration • The first sounding rocket launched by India from Thumba
in November 1963 carrying instruments for conducting ionospheric experiments (Nike‐Apache)
• The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) in the mid‐1970s with NASA
• Also, the US could be credited (!) for slowing the pace of India’s space programme INSAT & Remote Sensing: the US Angle
• Indian National Satellite (INSAT) System, all the four satellites of INSAT‐1 series were built by a US‐based firm to India's specifications, with US launch vehicles used for three of the satellites for their placement in the orbit
• India established a reception station for receiving data from NASA's Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS), later renamed as LANDSAT, in the remote sensing domain
• As a result, India gained vital experience in the reception, processing and application of data gathered from remote sensing satellites Collaborating with Uncle Sam…
• Joint Working Group on Civil Space (constituted as the follow‐up to the US‐India Conference on Space issues held at Bangalore June 2004)
• Space cooperation has expanded to the areas of space science, earth observation, satellite navigation, natural hazards research, disaster management support and education
• The fourth meeting of India‐US Joint Working Group on Civil Space Cooperation (JWG‐CSC) was concluded at Washington DC in March 2013
Trajectory for Indo‐US Space Collaboration • Potentially including India’s participation in research aboard the International Space Station (ISS)
• SSA, Maritime domain awareness, Space solar power,...
• Importance of space security
Steering Indo‐US Space Cooperation
• Cooperation to improve the use of earth observation data to promote sustainable development, carry forward the proposed cooperation in L and S‐band SAR mission. On 30 Sep 2014: Agreement to conduct joint NASA‐ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission
• India’s GAGAN for civil aviation purposes (to augment GPS signals over the India region), under a commercial agreement with Raytheon, a US‐based firm. Efforts are underway to ensure compatibility between India’s IRNSS and the US GPS
Pivot of Indo‐US Space Cooperation
• Chandrayaan‐I, the pivot of Indo‐US cooperation in space exploration. Carried two payloads from NASA, a Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar to map ice deposits on the lunar surface and a Moon Mineralogy Mapper to assess mineral resources of the Moon
• ISRO‐NASA Mars working group (29‐31 Jan 2015, Bangalore)…opportunities for enhanced cooperation ISRO’s French Connection • ISRO and French Centre National de Etudes Spatiales (CNES) has culminated over five decades of cooperation
• 2010 India visit, Nicolas Sarkozy visited the ISRO headquarters at Bangalore even before visiting New Delhi
• India has significant amount of dependence on Arianespace, even GSAT‐7 satellite was launched by them
Engaging French
Application Based Porgrammes
• A large number of bilateral agreements between both the states have been signed in the domains of space technology since the 1960s
• Working together on wide range of issues varying from satellite applications and development of small satellites to earth system science and weather satellites. Joint research on issues related to tropical weather prediction and climate change
French Engagement is more on Climate Science • Joint missions such as Megha‐Tropiques (analysis of water cycle in the tropical region) and SARAL under the auspices of the agreement signed in 1993
• SARAL (Satellite for ARgos‐3 and ALtika). SARAL has oceanographic applications to study. Contributes to the Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE), the first international operational oceanography experiment
• Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) India‐USSR Space Collaboration • India’s first satellite, Aryabhata, was launched on April 19, 1975 on a Soviet rocket from a Soviet launch site (Kapustin Yar range) on a Soviet Kosmos‐3M rocket.
• During the year 1977 Indian Space Research Organistion (ISRO) was helped to build an experimental laser based optical
• Sqn Ldr Rakesh Sharma the India’s only cosmonaut visited space‐ on board Soyouz T‐10 (1984)
Confines of Russia Space Progarmme
• During the period 1989‐2002: state support for space activities declined by almost 20 times. The space expenditures of GNP declined from 0.73% in 1989 to 0.1% 1998
• In 1992 the US objected to an agreement between the Glavkosmos & ISRO for the sale to India of cryogenic rocket engines and the technology to produce them
Recent Projects with Russia • An umbrella agreement signed around 2004 onwards… improving the relationship • GLONASS
• YouthSat
• Chandrayan‐2….Russia is not able to fulfill the promise
• Indian and Russian space agencies have agreed on cooperation in the field of solar physics and solar‐
terrestrial relationships within the framework of the Coronas‐Photon Project Multilateral Mechanisms
•
Regional mechanisms began essentially with economic and social focus…S&T….Space (civilian and strategic dimension) comes later
•
None of the ASEAN member states are space‐faring nations but ASEAN+three…
ASEAN cooperation in S&T with its Dialogue Partners and Sectorial
Dialogue Partner which include space‐faring states like India. One programme is space technology and applications
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SCO no specific unit for space collaboration... but 2012 SCO declaration promotes PPWT
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BRICS harnessing advanced technology (sat com)...health, education... •
IBSA South‐South cooperation, possibility to jointly realise a small satellite for space weather studies
Exclusive Space Mechanisms • Asia‐Pacific Space Cooperation Organisation (APSCO)...China domination....India and Japan are absent • Asia‐Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF)
Treaties, Norms, Codes…. • OST and other mechanisms……general agreement
• Space CoC…Idea of major powers, is India following a fence‐sitter approach?
• PPWT….west not keen to touch China & Russia, is India ready to debate the second draft….and agree at least in principle for a need for treaty mechanism and push for it…
Bonhomie with Space Players • Has space bonhomie worked for India?
• Would India’s association help towards its future military requirements? How best India can use such associations to build up Space Command • What could the future of India’s engagement of major space players
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India‐US....promising
India‐France....less engagement in launch arena India‐Russia....limited engagement
India‐Japan...scope for more India ESA/Israel...some growth expected.. Major Powers Need to Recognize… • Hypothetically…if India conducts an ASAT test… How would major powers view it?
• Will they assist India to develop satellite jamming technologies
• Would military navigation (encrypted) services for GPS/Galileo ever be offered to India?
• Would major players offer security partnership trough dual‐use nature of space technologies….“Soft Security” Wrapping up… • India’s International engagement in civilian domain is likely to increase
• Would state’s like United State increase assistance to India in Space arena… to “balance” China? • Role of non‐state actors in going to increase and ISRO needs to evolve a policy for engaging such emerging players
• Space Security…India would have to have an independent view Thank You