The Mission Shakti test: Why now?

The geostrategic consequences to the Mission could be mixed. We will have to wait and see what the pros and cons are

How can you knockout, or disable, an object hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, moving at more than 3 kms per second? Mission Shakti involved hitting it with a missile. It could also be targeted with laser beams, or an electronic pulse weapon, to fry the object without blowing it up. 

Why would you do this? Satellites and ballistic missiles are part and parcel of modern arsenals. Satellites provide observation and communication services, while ballistic missiles can carry nuclear payloads and hit targets thousands of kilometre away. 

The ability to interdict ballistic missiles and scramble satellite-based communication networks could be crucial. Such technology might also be useful to guard against the Earth being hit by a meteorite that causes large-scale destruction, or even a mass extinction, as has occurred in the past.

Under President Ronald Reagan (1980-88), the USA stumbled upon a more subtle, economic reason for a ballistic missile defence/anti-satellite defence project. The R&D of the so-called Star Wars was expensive. The Soviet Union lacked the financial resources to stay abreast of the Americans, and the arms race triggered an economic crisis that probably hastened the demise of the USSR. 

In technical terms, viable ballistic-missile defence systems and anti-satellite weapons require similar capabilities. There is a need to track a fast-moving object, to predict its path, and to have weapons that can reach it. This has to happen quickly — the system must be able to detect, track, and hit the object inside a few minutes. 

India had to develop these capacities to manage its own satellite assets, and its missile system. Such a defence system may itself be deployed in space to give quicker response times, and extend range. ISRO has launched satellites with payloads of 5,000 kg-plus. So the DRDO may even be technically capable of deploying such a system in space. 

India had a ballistic missile defence system in place, by 2012. By then, it had carried out at least five successful tests, hitting and blowing up missiles (without warheads) using versions of the Prithvi and the Agni. The chief scientific adviser at the time, V K Saraswat, claimed at the 97th Indian Science Congress that India had “all the building blocks in place for an anti-satellite system”. 

Blowing up a satellite is easier than intercepting a ballistic missile, as India has successfully done many times. Most medium and long-range ballistic missiles climb well above 300 kilometres during their flight and they have complicated flight trajectories, while satellites have predictable orbits.

India’s earlier reluctance to carry out an anti-satellite test could have been due to the widespread condemnation of China’s testing of an anti-satellite system in 2007. China hit one of its own defunct satellites, which weighed about 750 kg, at a height of about 800 km. That created 3,000-plus pieces of debris, each cricket-ball-sized, or larger. Some debris collided with a Russian satellite and other pieces caused risk to the International Space Station. 

The European Space Agency estimates that, as of January 2019, there were 1950 functional satellites and 3,000-odd defunct satellites orbiting Earth. Space Surveillance Networks track 22,300 pieces of debris larger than 10 cm.  So this is a very serious problem. 

In 2012-13, the DRDO was looking to tweak the ballistic missile defence system electronically to carry out anti-sat simulation tests, maybe with a “fly-by” where an anti-satellite missile would pass very close to a satellite without hitting it. The Mission Shakti test hit a 740 kg satellite in an orbit about 300 km from Earth. While this creates debris, it’s close enough to the Earth for the pieces to fall into the atmosphere and burn up quickly, reducing the danger. 

Why did India do this now? Well, apart from elections, there is an ongoing 25 nation conference in Geneva where a Group of Government Experts are discussing the prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS). In analogy to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, PAROS may ban the development of anti-sat systems, while offering a waiver to nations already possessing these. After Shakti, India may be hoping to present a fait accompli.

India is a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, which bans weapons of mass destruction being deployed in space. This test doesn’t breach those terms. India is also a member of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee and Shakti was calibrated to ensure minimised debris. 

The geostrategic consequences to the Mission could be mixed. The systems were indigenously developed and DRDO, ISRO, et al, have been inured to sanctions since 1998. But other programmes may be affected. We’ll have to wait and see what the pros and cons are.