Spy satellites to monitor other spy satellites. India will soon have its own constellation of satellites to keep an eye out for other satellites that might be surveilling India.
The project being undertaken by the Defence Ministry, which is in the process of being finalised, will have ‘satellite mapping’ capabilities and will be fully made in India, senior officials from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told ThePrint.
“India will be focusing on improving its presence in space in the coming years. This initiative will be a part of that larger aim,” a senior ISRO official said.
This network of satellites will enhance India’s space domain awareness and will also help monitor orbital threats in real-time. The project is being overseen under NETRA, a Network for Tracking Space Objects and Analysis, which detects space debris and other hazardous space objects.
The official said that while ISRO will partner with the MoD in overseeing the overall design and monitoring of these satellites, a private Bengaluru-based space start-up, Digantara, has been contracted to deploy these satellites within the next year.
How does satellite mapping work?
The capabilities of monitoring foreign satellites is being acquired by countries including the US, Russia and China.
These satellites have propulsion and guidance systems that utilise factors such as orbital inclinations and altitudes to get information and photographs from a potential target satellite.
Some of these satellites are also capable of intercepting inter-satellite communications and links to ground stations.
Varying versions of such technology are either already deployed or are currently being tested. In 2020, the US Space Command—an agency responsible for tracking all objects in orbit—flagged that the Russian satellite Kosmos 2543 had released an unknown object into space. This was believed to be a test of a new technology that could be used to destroy objects already in orbit.
The Russian satellite released this tech in close proximity to another Russian satellite.
“Space is increasingly becoming a weapon for countries. Battles will no longer be limited to just the ground, but will also be fought in space. And countries need to be ready for it,” the ISRO official said.
Focus on active orbital security
India is already working on increasing its defence capabilities in space.
Its next ‘spy satellite programme’, space-based surveillance-3 or SBS-3, will launch a constellation of 52 surveillance satellites in the coming two years. Three private space startups, Ananth Technologies, Centum Electronics and Alpha Design Technologies, have joined hands with the government to give shape to this project.
The Rs 27,000 crore project is set to significantly improve India’s national security capabilities.