The Defence Space Agency (DSA) is a tri-service agency of the

Indian Armed Forces The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of India. It consists of three professional uniformed services: the Indian Army, Indian Navy, and Indian Air Force.—— Additionally, the Indian Armed Forces are supported by ...

. Headquartered in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Kar ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

. The agency is tasked with operating the space-warfare and Satellite Intelligence assets of

. The DSA draws personnel from all three branches of the

Armed Forces A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

. The agency is expected to be converted into a full sized tri-service military

command Command may refer to: Computing * Command (computing), a statement in a computer language * COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS * Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards ...

in future.

History

Origins

The Naresh Chandra Task Force was set up in July 2011 by

National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National secu ...

Shivshankar Menon Shivshankar Menon (born 5 July 1949) is an Indian diplomat, who served as National Security Adviser of India under Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh. He had previously served as the Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. P ...

to review the recommendations of the

Kargil Review Committee The Kargil Review Committee (KRC) was set up by the Government of India on 29 July 1999, three days after the end of the Kargil War The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was fought between India and Pakistan from May to July ...

, assess the implementation progress and further suggest new reforms related to national security. The task force was led by Naresh Chandra, retired

Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. Considered the premier civil service of India, the IAS is one of the three arms of the All India Services along with the India ...

officer, and comprised 13other members, including Gopalaswami Parthasarathy, Air Chief Marshal Srinivasapuram Krishnaswamy (Retd), Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd), Lt Gen V. R. Raghavan (Retd),

Anil Kakodkar Anil Kakodkar (born 11 November 1943) is an Indian nuclear physicist and mechanical engineer. He was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India and the Secretary to the Government of India, he was the Director of the Bhabha Atomic ...

, K C Verma and V K Duggal. The committee conducted the first holistic review of national security since the Kargil Review Committee and submitted its classified report to

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indi ...

on 23May2012. Among its recommendations, the Task Force recommended the creation of a cyber command, an aerospace command and a special operations command. All three units were proposed to be tri-service commands. The DSA is a downsized implementation of this proposal. The creation of the Defence Space Agency (DSA), the

Defence Cyber Agency The Defence Cyber Agency (DCyA) is a tri-service command of the Indian Armed Forces. Headquartered in New Delhi, the agency is tasked with handling cyber security threats. The DCyA draws personnel from all three branches of the Armed Forces. The ...

(DCA), and the

Armed Forces Special Operations Division The Armed Forces Special Operations Division (AFSOD) is a tri-service command of the Indian Armed Forces. The division is tasked to carry out special operations. The AFSOD draws personnel from all three special warfare branches of the Armed For ...

(AFSOD) was approved by

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the List of Prime Ministers of India, 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the List of chief ministers of Gujarat, Chief Minist ...

during the Combined Commanders' Conference at Jodhpur Air Force Station on 28 September 2018. The Defence Imagery Processing and Analysis Centre in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders wi ...

and the Defence Satellite Control Centre in

Bhopal Bhopal (; ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the ''City of Lakes'' due to its various natural and artificial lakes. It ...

were subsumed by the DSA.

Anti-satellite programme of India

Months before the operationalisation of the Defence Space Agency,

conducted an

Anti-satellite weapon Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) are space weapons designed to incapacitate or destroy satellites for strategic or tactical purposes. Several nations possess operational ASAT systems. Although no ASAT system has been utilised in warfare, a few ...

(ASAT) test in March 2019. The test was aimed at demonstrating India's anti-satellite capability. The Indian ASAT programme can be traced back to its BMD program, which began in 1999 in response to threats posed by the

Ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within ...

s of

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

and China.Interview: Vijay Kumar Saraswat
/ref> In 2006 and 2007, India tested its first exo atmospheric interceptor and has developed many interceptors since then. On 18 March 2008,

DRDO The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) ( IAST: ''Raksā Anūsandhān Evam Vikās Sangaṭhan'') is the premier agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in Ministry of Defence of the Government of India ...

Chief

V. K. Saraswat Vijay Kumar Saraswat is an Indian scientist who formerly served as the Director General of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Indian Minister of Defence. He retired on 31 May 2003 a ...

had hinted that India possessed technology required for an ASAT missile, reiterating it in February 2010. India is known to have been developing an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle that can be integrated with the missile to engage satellites. In April 2012, Saraswat again said that India possessed the critical technologies for an ASAT weapon from radars and interceptors developed for

Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Programme The Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Program is an initiative to develop and deploy a multi-layered ballistic missile defence system to protect India from ballistic missile attacks. It was launched in 2000 after Kargil War by the Atal Bihari Vaj ...

. India had begun work on its ASAT soon after the

2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test On 11 January 2007, China conducted an anti-satellite missile test. A Chinese weather satellite—the FY-1C (COSPAR 1999-025A) polar orbit satellite of the Fengyun series, at an altitude of , with a mass of —was destroyed by a kinetic kill veh ...

. As of April 2019, India was working on directed energy ASAT weapons, co-orbital ASAT weapons, lasers and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) based ASAT weapons. The ability to protect space assets from hostile electronic and physical attacks was also being developed by India.

Exercise ''IndSpaceEx''

India conducted its first simulated

space warfare Space warfare is hypothetical combat in which one or more belligerents are situated in outer space. The scope of space warfare therefore includes ''ground-to-space warfare'', such as attacking satellites from the Earth; ''space-to-space warfare ...

exercise on 25th and 26 July 2019, called ''IndSpaceEx''. The exercise was conducted under the supervision of

Integrated Defence Staff The Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) is an organisation responsible for fostering coordination and enabling prioritisation across the different branches of the Indian Armed Forces. It is composed of representatives from the Indian Army, Indian Navy ...

. The exercise was aimed at obtaining an assessment of threats and the creation of a joint space warfare doctrine.

Organisation

The DSA will be in

. It will function under the

. Personnel from all the three branches of the

will be stationed in the agency. The agency is expected to be fully operational by November 2019.

Role

The DSA will operate systems to protect Indian interests in

outer space Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...

and will deal with potential space wars. The agency will have the responsibility of developing a

strategy. It works on

Signals Intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...

(SIGINT),

Electronic Intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...

(ELINT),

Communication Intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...

(COMINT) and in areas like space-based tracking systems.

Defence Space Research Agency

The Defence Space Research Agency (DSRA) is the scientific organisation responsible for developing space-warfare systems and technologies for the Defence Space Agency. The DSRA was approved by the

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

in June 2019. The DSRo is composed of scientists who undertake research and development in close coordination with the

. Various types of

systems are currently under development.

References

{{Politics of outer space Military units and formations of India Joint military units and formations of India 2018 establishments in Karnataka Government agencies established in 2018