India is striving to become a major peaceful force in the world which has a greater say in the ongoing world affairs. One of the steps towards it, India’s first ever simulated space war exercise dubbed IndSpaceEx, is slated to happen in July 2019. It underscores the newfound seriousness in thwarting threats posed to our space assets by rival nations.
Recently in March, India had launched an anti-satellite (A-Sat) missile to take down an imaging satellite creating a measure of deterrence for vital Indian interests in space that include communications, navigation, earth observation, and surveillance satellites.
Subsequently, a tri-service Defence Space Agency is taking shape which could even become a Space Command when its space war capabilities mature.
The space warfare exercise IndSpaceEx
The space warfare exercise has been named as IndSpaceEx. All military stakeholders, including those from the scientific community, will participate in it. The purpose of the exercise is to understand the possible challenges in space warfare and to counter China’s growing influence in this domain, which poses a major threat to India’s national security interest.
“The main aim of the exercise, to be held in the last week of July under the aegis of the Integrated Defense Staff of the defense ministry, is to assess the requisite space and counter-space capabilities that are needed by India to ensure we can protect our national security interests in this final frontier of warfare,” the TOI sources quoted a senior official as saying.
Chinese Factor in Space Warfare
The news of space warfare exercise came just three days after China launched seven satellites from a ship at sea. Experts feel that the scheduled exercise is the need of the hour as countries like the US, China and Russia are increasing their defense capabilities in the final frontier of warfare.
China, after testing an A-Sat missile against a weather satellite in January 2007, has set a fast pace in developing military capabilities in space in terms of both kinetic (direct ascent missiles, co-orbital kill satellites) as well as non-kinetic (lasers, electromagnetic pulse) weapons. In yet another indicator of its ambitious program that threatens the supremacy of the US in outer space, China launched a rocket with seven satellites from a ship at sea just three days ago.
What is a Simulated Space Warfare Exercise?
As the name suggests the simulated war exercise will try to replicate the real life scenario of a space war. This includes attack and defense during attack on satellites and destroying the space infrastructure of the adversary.
It is the next logical step after developing and testing anti-satellite (A-Sat) missiles.