Anti-Satellite (ASAT) Weapons:
India is recognised as a key player in creating global norms for responsible space behavior, said Marjolijn van Deelen, EU Special Envoy for Space.
- ASAT weapons are specialized technologies designed to disable, destroy, or interfere with satellites in orbit for strategic or defensive purposes.
- ASATs are a key component of space warfare capabilities and are used to neutralize enemy satellites that are used for surveillance, communication, navigation, or early warning systems.
- ASAT weapons are broadly classified into two categories:
- Kinetic Energy ASATs: These involve direct physical impact, usually through missiles that collide with satellites to destroy them. The impact generates orbital debris, which can pose a long-term hazard to other space assets.
- Non-Kinetic ASATs: These use non-physical means such as cyber-attacks, jamming, spoofing, and directed energy weapons like lasers to disrupt or blind a satellite without physically destroying it.
- ASAT weapons can be launched from ground stations, aircraft, or even other satellites, making them versatile and difficult to detect in some cases.
- As of now, four countries — United States, Russia, China, and India — have demonstrated operational ASAT capabilities through tests.
- India’s ASAT Test (Mission Shakti) was conducted in March 2019, where a live satellite in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) was destroyed by a three-stage interceptor missile at an altitude of around 300 km in a “hit-to-kill” mode.
- The global community, particularly the European Union (EU), has expressed concern about the space debris created by destructive ASAT tests and has called for a ban on such practices under the United Nations framework.
