Today, India is a considerable spacefaring state and an emergent space power. With the inception of the Indian space program in the 1960s, the focus was on making use of space assets on-orbit, primarily in the areas of telecommunications and remote sensing, to advance civil development in the country. This focus was realized and to the present serves as a model for developing states and space programs to emulate. Beginning in the 1990s, growing capabilities and capacities led to a broadening of space activities. This includes medium to heavy lift space launch vehicles, more advanced telecommunications and remote sensing satellites, Earth observation platforms, scientific satellites and projects to the Moon and Mars, a regional navigation and timing space-based capability, national security space missions, reusable launch vehicle technologies, and a planned agenda for human spaceflight. These activities developed indigenously given geopolitics and technology sanctions regimes on India that were in place until 2004. The indigenous development illustrates the national prowess of India in scientific and technological know-how.
Development in India’s space program took place though national, government-centric efforts led by the establishment of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in 1969 and the Department of Space (DOS) in 1972. One important result of these efforts was the establishment of a robust space industrial base. On this basis, India pursued the commercialization of space activities. This began in the early 1990s with the incorporation of Antrix Corporation Limited, a government company, though the transition from a more government-centric space program to one with significant commercialization is an ongoing process. A second result is the recognition for strategy, policy, and law to more optimally advance India’s space program. Despite ISRO, DOS, and India’s ratification and adherence to norms and principles of international space law and the Outer Space Treaty (OST) regime, national policy and law, in particular, have not kept pace adequately with Indian space activities. As of 2016, India formulated only a satellite communication policy and a remote sensing data policy, and consequently, there is a growing consensus on the need for more comprehensive policy and law frameworks for space.
This special issue of Astropolitics focuses on the dynamics of the Indian space program in relation to doctrine, power, strategy, security, policy, law, commercialization, and technology. The first article in the issue, authored by Gurbachan Singh Sachdeva, examines how and in what ways a space doctrine for India is beneficial. Sachdeva states that doctrine is a higher-level statement of principles and purpose as compared to strategy, policy, and law. Doctrine serves to guide the development for the latter and for a more effective projection of both national power and space power.
The second and third articles of the issue address power and national security aspects of India’s space program. In the second article, Ajey Lele examines the case of India within the scope of a global context of space power. Both hard power based on Indian capabilities and soft power rooted in global engagements and collaborations are considered. The third article explores strategic concerns of national security and deterrence. S. Chandrashekar makes the case here that “India must accept and deal with the reality that conflicts and wars in today’s world will be driven by the increasing interdependence between conventional, nuclear, and space war.” In order to address this challenge, the author offers a capability-based strategy based on command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets complemented by space situational awareness capacities.
India’s emergence as a spacefaring power is primarily enabled by space launch vehicle development. Rajaram Nagappa documents the story of this development, which took place indigenously with an emphasis on self-reliance. Nagappa reviews how launch capability matured from development to operational phases. Currently, India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle are in a position to meet both domestic and international market demands.
The next two articles examine the challenges of developing national policy and national space law. The first, by Kiran Nair, starts with the premise that India’s space policy is not comprehensive since it only deals with satellite communications and remote sensing, as mentioned earlier. Given the growth in India’s space program, the author argues for a comprehensive policy approach for civil, commercial, and security interests, which is “deliberate, specific, and purposeful” and is “practical, implementable, and satisfying to most stakeholders.” Following this, Kumar Abhijeet assesses the development of national space law. The assumption is that as long as long as space activities remain in the government domain, there is not a preference for national space legislation beyond the establishment of ISRO and DOS. Abhijeet asserts that with the advent of commercialization and private space actors in India this situation is no longer acceptable, as the state bears responsibility for all space activities, including commercial and private, according to the OST regime. In the end, there is a call for a National Space Act to address international legal obligations and to put forward procedural rules for licensing of private space actors.
The last set of articles probes the area of space commercialization in India from regulation and legislation to an assessment of trends. Malay Adhikari provides a review of space industries in India and discusses how their commercialization potential is constrained due to a lack of sufficient legal regulations. Fundamental to this challenge of realizing effective regulations is a market-centric approach with the attendant focus on both national and global space commercial markets. In the next article, Ashok Gubbi Venkateshmurthy and Narayan Prasad Nagendra elaborate on national space legislation issues for the private space industry in India. In this analysis, the authors proffer a “regulatory body to oversee licensing and monitoring activities, technology transfers, liability, insurance, ownership rights, national security, and tax rationalization” for commercial and private space actors. Finally, Nagendra scrutinizes trends of industry participation in the national space program and offers insights into how best to expand this participation in both upstream and downstream activities.
Lastly, the special issue concludes with a book review written by Arindrajit Basu. The volume under review, From Fishing Hamlet to Red Planet: India’s Space Journey, “highlights the technological, political, diplomatic, and economic hurdles faced by the Indian space program.” It offers a first-hand perspective of India’s accomplishments by featuring chapters authored by those involved in the various projects. Of significance in the journey is the advancement of India’s space program from a societal purpose to combat poverty to one that is on par with the space powers of the world.