Specialist cadre needed for space warfare, feel defence forces

During country's maiden space warfare exercise, the defence forces have realised that there is a need for developing a specialist cadre from the military and scientific community to further strengthen Indian expertise in the space arena.

The three services held their first table-top space warfare exercise to develop a doctrine in space warfare in this regard code named IndSpaceEx.

"One of the main outcomes of the exercise was that there was a need felt for developing a specialist cadre from military and DRDO along with the Other scientific community," Defence sources told ANI.

The exercise was first such attempt by the defence forces to develop a doctrine for space warfare after the Mission Shakti and a large number of participants from the three services, DRDO, academia, thinktanks took part in the event.

Sources said that another realisation during the war game was that there is already infrastructure in the country in the form of start-ups and space technology industry for developing military utilisation of space, they said.

The forces are developing a Joint Space Doctrine which will help India to prepare for future space wars.

The defence forces are also working in conjunction with the Defence Space research agency which has been created to provide new capabilities to the defence forces in space warfare.

Sources said the participants in the exercise felt that India is ready for production and launch of satellites for space military requirements but there is a need for coordination between the stakeholders including the NITI Aayog, DRDO, ISRO and other related agencies.

The sources said the Prime Minister's Office is also close to coming out with a space policy in the near future.