Brig. Anshuman Narang (r)
Operation SINDOOR, the recent and ongoing global conflicts have highlighted the importance of Space as a strategic commanding height in the modern battlespace, requiring multi-domain integrated operations by all elements of national power. All advanced nations and militaries have adopted a whole-of-nation approach in a race to dominate the space domain, leading outer space exploration and achieving key military missions, including 24/7 all-weather Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Space Situational Awareness, to strengthen conventional and nuclear deterrence. Space Deterrence is a critical aspect of comprehensive national security through Full-Spectrum Strategic Deterrence. It has four essential requirements: indigenization or Atmanirbharta, Intelligentization or Artificial Intelligence (AI) enablement, Commercialization enabled by Civil-Military Fusion (CMF), and Miniaturization. While the American selective denial of Global Positioning System (GPS) in the Kargil War in 1999 had highlighted the essentiality of Indigenisation, the likelihood of Operation SINDOOR 2.0 anytime soon has emphasised the urgency of becoming ‘Atma Nirbhar’. This article will thus focus on the most important aspect, Atma Nirbharta, in the space domain.
People’s Republic of China (PRC) today aspires to have the world’s strongest military globally by 2049 when it completes 100 years of its founding. Amidst this dream for a strong military and the largest economy, China’s‘ Space Dream’ to become the primary ‘Space Superpower’ has fuelled a ‘Space Race’ between the aspiring global power China and the current global power USA. Chinese space prowess significantly assisted both the Pakistan-sponsored Pahalgam terrorist attack on 22 April 2025 and Pakistan’s military thereafter during Operation SINDOOR. While Pakistan had access to Chinese, Turkish and American satellites, India had to rely on its own limited capabilities and mainly on American commercial ISR constellations.
Figure: Commercial Satellite Images Taken of the Pahalgam Area by Various Countries from January to April 2025
(Source- Mr Aditya Kothandapani)
Note- The Terrorist Attack took place on 22 April 2025. This data does not include Chinese military and Turkish satellites
As the most populous country with the fourth-largest economy, developing at the fastest pace, and facing dual-front collusive adversaries, India rightfully needs to prepare for the ongoing space race. In the current geo-political quagmire and tyrannies of trade wars of tariffs, the indigenisation of space domain firstly requires an independent thought process, or simply ‘Atma Nirbhar Soch’. This independent Space Strategy must encompass an indigenous, dual-purpose vision and doctrine that meets both civil and military requirements. It should be an original, innovative space strategy to overcome the current technological asymmetry with the leading space-faring nations —USA and China —and, most importantly, strengthen India’s resolve and candidature to compete in this Space Race. This race for global domination spans various factors which can simply be termed ‘20 R’, with a few of them discussed below.
Figure: ‘20 R’ Conceptual Contours of Space Race
(Source- Author’s Research)
Reconnaissance, Revisit and Response. Operation SINDOOR highlighted the need for a space-enabled, multi-domain kill web with indigenous data self-sufficiency, as well as responsive and persistent 24/7 detection, acquisition, and tracking capabilities. Till India becomes self-sufficient in meeting its global space-based data requirements, India needs to diversify its data aggregation strategy from a multitude of foreign satellite constellations rather than relying on one country only. In the longer run, the compression of the kill-chain to ensure “Detection Equals Destruction” in case of war and “Prediction cum Detection Equals Survivability” in case of environmental calamities requires minimizing the revisit intervals of our multi-spectral multi-disciplinary constellations ideally to less than 15 minutes. The minimisation of response time additionally requires the Intelligentization of image processing capabilities and the incorporation of edge computing to transform from the current Geospatial Intelligence method of ‘Sense in Space, Analyse on Ground’ to ‘Sense in Space, Analyse in Space’. This further necessitates inter-satellite communication and multi-payload satellites adopting the convergent ‘Positioning, Navigation, Timing, Remote Sensing, Communication’ (PNTRSC) trilogy.
Figure: Space Enabled Multi-Spectral Multi-Disciplinary Kill Web
(Source- Author’s Research)
Reach. India is an established regional power in the Indian Ocean Region and is likely to play a significant role in an increasingly multipolar global order. There have been many circumstances when India has had to evacuate its citizens from various global conflict sites. Thus, India requires a global satellite coverage that can also assist the developing and underdeveloped countries of the ‘Global South’. An initial assured regional coverage and later reasonable global PNTRSC coverage requires significant infrastructure development- more launch stations to significantly enhance indigenous launch cadence, data receiving stations and terminals, sensors and various assets for enhancing Space Situational Awareness, etc.
Reforms and Resources for Space Race. Institutional reforms and organisational restructuring, particularly of defence space structures, are essential to harness talent as a strategic resource, data collection for Algorithmic Superiority, pursue quality orbital and frequency slots on international forums, and ensure aviation fuel security.
Revenue. The space domain essentially comprises three parts: upstream, midstream, and downstream. The strengthening of the upstream capabilities to dominate the space domain can only be sustained by significant revenues generated downstream. India today has the largest unconnected population on the internet in the world. The digital connectivity of the Indian population by satellite communication can thus create the largest revenues and also the largest quantum of data, which is essentially the new oil. Hence, simple economics proves that indigenization of India’s satellite-based throughput connectivity is essential to ensure that these revenues don’t go to American Starlink, European One Web, or Chinese Guowang and Qianfan satellite communication constellations. Amidst a burgeoning global space industry, India undoubtedly has many options for enhancing its global space economy percentages, matching its population or at least its economy size.
With ‘Strategic Autonomy’ as a main foreign policy tool, growing global stature, and the fastest-growing large economy, ‘Viksit aur Surakshit Bharat’ must clearly define a multi-disciplinary vision for Atmanirbharta in the Space domain. Amidst an open Space race between the two largest economic powers, the fourth largest economy must vigorously pursue its space indigenisation goals to strengthen its Full-Spectrum Strategic Deterrence and be combat-ready equally for SINDOOR 2.0 or any natural disaster in the future. The key focus areas, priority-wise, therefore need to be indigenous all-weather 24×7 ISR coverage with revisit time of at least less than 2 hours at the earliest, assured strategic communication and navigation capabilities, and a progressive incorporation of quantum technologies. This necessitates the development of a time-bound ground support infrastructure, rapid commercialization, increased R&D, organizational restructuring, and innovative solutions to mitigate the massive technological asymmetry, particularly in the military sector.
Brigadier Anshuman Narang (r) is an established author, reputed speaker and the founder of an independent think tank, “Atma Nirbhar Soch”. He is also an Advisor at Suhora Technologies and holds the “Chair of Excellence” at CENJOWS on Counter-Drones.
