We are seeing militarisation of space, steady progress towards weaponisation: CDS

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CategoryDefence

Last Updated13/04/2023

The chief of defence staff (CDS) said, The very nature of warfare is on the cusp of major transformation and what is being witnessed is militarisation of space and steady progress towards weaponisation.
While stating space is being used to enhance combat capabilities in land, sea and cyber domains.

The aim for all of us should be towards developing dual-use platforms with special focus towards incorporating cutting-edge technology and we must expand our NAVIC constellation, provide agile space-based Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and ensure secure satellite-assisted communications.
Referring to the development of new kinetic weapons resulting in war in space “becoming a reality”, he gave examples of recent tests by Russia and China, and stressed the need to build India’s own offensive and defensive means in this domain.

The event is part of deliberations under ‘Mission Def-Space’, under which 75 challenges have been identified for development by the industry.
The populating of the space domain and the emergence of dynamic threat environment to our space assets also demands that we enhance our space situational awareness capability.
There’s also a requirement to safeguard our assets with counter space capabilities. We must build resilience and redundancy in a space-based infrastructure.”
The interaction went on for several months and was then vetted by ISRO and DRDO to create these 75 challenges which cover all requirements upstream, mid-stream and down-stream.
The challenges are now being implemented in batches and the process is on.