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What's the article about?
- It talks about India-US space cooperation and ways to make it sustainable and long-term.
Relevance:
- GS2: Bilateral Agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests; India-US relations;
- GS3: Awareness in the field of Space;
- Prelims
The India-US Space Cooperation:
- Recently the eighth meeting of the U.S.-India Civil Space Joint Working Group (CSJWG) took place.
- From that meeting it is seen that India and US agree to advance space collaboration in several areas, under the umbrella scheme of US-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET).
- Some of the crucial areas of cooperation include human space exploration and commercial space partnership.
- But certain structural factors limit the extent of this cooperation to the short term. But we need a sustained long term cooperation to really gain from this collaboration.
What are the structural factors which hinders sustained long term cooperation?
- The mismatch in the two nations’ interests in outer space:
- India’s scientific community is, at present, focused on building the nation’s capability in and under earth orbits (such as low earth orbit).
- But The US has committed to returning to the moon — and this time to stay there for the long term. Thus they are not focused on, as India is, maintaining capabilities in low-Earth orbit.
- The asymmetry in capabilities:
- The U.S. has the highest number of registered satellites in space. It also has a range of launch vehicles serving both commercial and national-security needs. The American private sector has also assumed the challenge of replacing the International Space Station by 2030 with many smaller stations.
- The greatest challenge for India here is lack of capacity. The country has just over 60 satellites in orbit and cannot undertake double-digit launches annually. The Indian government also opened the space industry to the private sector only in 2020.
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NASA’s Artemis Programme:
ISRO's Gaganyaan Mission:
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Solutions:
- Standard solutions:
- Sustain the engagement between academics, the private sector and state-led entities in the two countries.
- For example, collaborating on highly specialised projects such as the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission.
- But these solutions are slow and not entirely suited for the new space age, where diplomacy struggles to keep up with the rate of technological innovation.
- Noval Solutions:
- Promoting partnership between state and private entities.
- For example, recently signed a convention of American and Indian aerospace companies to advance collaboration under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme.
- India could send its astronauts to train at American private companies. This could help India reduce its dependence on Russia while ISRO builds its own astronaut training centre.
- Promoting a consortium led by the government-owned NewSpace India Limited which involves private companies in the U.S.
- This setup could accelerate India’s human spaceflight programme and give the U.S. an opportunity to accommodate Indian interests in earth orbits.
- Promoting partnership between state and private entities.
Way Forward:
- Space industry observers believe that the space sector is poised for a three-fold expansion in the next two decades, propelled by the miniaturisation of satellites and the growing presence of a range of private players.
- As a result, India must rapidly develop its space capabilities, and cooperation with the world's largest and most advanced space nation is the need of the hour.
