How is India planning to protect its satellites in space?

How is India planning to protect its satellites in space? Premium

Following a near miss in 2024 between an Indian satellite and a foreign spacecraft, New Delhi has begun planning “bodyguard satellites” to watch over its fleet, according to media reports — a decision that could be part of a wider strategy that includes new surveillance spacecraft, radars, telescopes, and technologies such as LiDAR.

Satellites today guide airplanes and ships, power the internet, television services, and global financial transactions, and help scientists monitor the weather and climate change. They are also indispensable for national security: contemporary armies bank on satellites for communications, surveillance, and navigation. But as the number of satellites in orbit has grown, so have the risks. Spacecraft can collide with debris, be jammed by radio interference, hacked through ground systems, and threatened by hostile manoeuvres by other satellites. Given the costs of maintaining satellites in orbit and logistical challenges to building and launching new ones, protecting them has become a major concern for every spacefaring nation.

Even as a physical environment, space presents risks that would be unimaginable on the ground. For example, a small screw left over from a rocket can punch a hole in a spacecraft traveling at 28,000 km per hour, enough to terminate the mission.

To manage this risk, countries have built large debris-tracking networks. The US operates the Space Fence, a radar that can spot objects the size of a marble. The European Union runs EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EUSST), which warns satellite operators about impending threats. India has the Indian Space Situational Awareness and Management (IS4OM) centre in Bengaluru, a satellite-tracking hub that tracks satellites, warns of dangerous encounters, and coordinates collision avoidance manoeuvres.

Indeed, in 2023 alone, Indian satellites executed more than 10 collision-avoidance manoeuvres. India's Project NETRA is expanding these capabilities with new radars and telescopes. The Multi-Object Tracking Radar at Sriharikota already provides some coverage while some new sites around the country are in the works. This said, India currently doesn't have the capability for continuous monitoring.

The “bodyguard satellites” India is reportedly mulling now could be dedicated spacecraft that could accompany valuable satellites, monitor close approaches, and perhaps even dispute hostile manoeuvres. While such technologies are believed to still be under discussion, that New Delhi is considering them at all illustrates how seriously it's taking the risk.

Satellites use radio signals to talk to the earth, including with users of navigation services. A powerful ground transmitter can jam a satellite's uplink or downlink or use spoofing — where false signals imitate genuine ones — can mislead navigation users. Spacefaring agencies have responded to such threats by designing hardened waveforms and systems. For instance, the US military developed its ‘Protected Tactical Waveform' for anti-jam communications and ‘Advanced Extremely High Frequency' satellites that use frequencies that are harder to disrupt. Likewise, Europe has rolled out Galileo OSNMA, which authenticates navigation messages to minimise spoofing. The US is also deploying an encrypted GPS M-code.

Take NavIC, India's own regional navigation system, for example. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been testing Navigation Message Authentication (NMA), a system that will allow receivers to verify that signals are the real deal. This feature isn't fully operational yet, however, but it could strengthen the country's users' ability to resist spoofing. While much less is known about military satellites, it's likely they also use anti-jamming techniques such as beam-steering antennas and spread-spectrum signals.

This said, NavIC is currently facing a crisis. Beginning 2016, the satellite constellation suffered multiple atomic clock failures and nine clocks had reported failed by 2018. IRNSS-1I was launched in that year to replace IRNSS-1A. Other satellites, such as IRNSS-1B and IRNSS-1F, are now showing signs of age. In early 2025, a faulty engine valve prevented the NVS-02 next-generation satellite for NavIC from being placed in the right orbit after launch. At present, industry reporting has indicated that NavIC could be one more satellite failure away from losing its ability to provide navigation services.

The digital threat is perhaps more alarming because the weakest points in satellite networks are often the ground stations, gateways, and user terminals. In 2022, a cyberattack against the Viasat network disrupted internet services across Europe just as the Ukraine conflict was escalating. In response, agencies worldwide issued advisories and set up partnerships. The US has the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (ISAC) to coordinate cyber threat intelligence.

India's equivalent action has come from CERT-In within the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which in 2025 issued guidelines for satellite operators that emphasise strong encryption, network segmentation, secure credentials, regular patching, and incident reporting. India's new licensing framework through IN-SPACe also requires private operators to comply with safety and security standards. The emphasis is on ensuring that as more private actors join India's space economy, they will adopt cyber hygiene from the outset.

Satellites are also threatened by natural forces. Solar storms can damage electronics, induce currents in power systems, and increase atmospheric drag, causing spacecraft to fall out of orbits sooner than expected. In turn, operators use forecasts from agencies like the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the European Space Agency, and the Centre of Excellence in Space Sciences India at IISER Kolkata to be prepared. India also took a major step with the Aditya-L1 mission, launched to study the sun from the L1 Lagrange point. Data from this mission can yield early warning of coronal mass ejections and other solar activity, helping satellite-controllers place spacecraft in safe mode and/or plan orbital manoeuvres that minimise exposure.

Beyond debris and natural threats also lies the shadow of geopolitics. Satellites can be inspected, shadowed or even targeted by third-party actors. Rendezvous and proximity operations used to be a niche technology but have become ubiquitous today.

While the satellite that allegedly approached the Indian satellite in 2024 didn't result in a collision, officials are said to be reading it as a test of capability and a warning. Such manoeuvres are difficult to detect without constant tracking. Former ISRO officials have suggested that LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) satellites could issue better warnings of these threats as well as more time to respond.

The concept of “bodyguard satellites” may also fall in this category. These spacecraft could be positioned near a critical satellite to monitor its surroundings, detect suspicious manoeuvres by other satellites, warn of threats, and physically intervene if required. They may also accompany orbital assets that protect against suspicious approaches — a strategy that mirrors global trends where major powers are testing defensive and offensive satellite technologies, even if most of the details are under wraps.

Further, technology isn't the only shield: international agreements can and do establish the rules of the road. The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) adopted voluntary guidelines in 2019 for the long-term sustainability of space. And while NATO has declared space to be an operational domain, 10 countries have come together under the Combined Space Operations Initiative to promote responsible behaviour in orbit. India stepped into these forums. In 2024, the country hosted the Inter-Agency Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), where ISRO publicly declared its intention to pursue ‘Debris-Free Space Missions by 2030'.

This was a significant shift from 2019, when ISRO and the Deference Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) carried out an anti-satellite missile test in low-earth orbit that created debris and drew global criticism, including for endangering the International Space Station.

The Indian government has also approved a ₹27,000-crore programme to launch 52 new surveillance satellites, with the first expected in 2026. They are expected to provide earth-observation and security functions and expand India's independent coverage of the orbital domain. Some start-ups are also contributing with space-based space situational awareness satellites that track debris and objects in orbit.

The future of satellite protection in space thus seems to involve multiple layers of protection. The first step is to be able to observe everything, using IS4OM, Project NETRA, and prospective LiDAR satellites. Then, once a threat is detected, ISRO or the corresponding operator avoid collisions, perhaps using predetermined collision-avoidance manoeuvres. Further, communications must be hardened and signals must be encrypted, networks must be segmented and constantly monitored, and clear rules must be drafted to report incidents.

As for natural threats: operators are already planning for solar storms with forecasting services; the Aditya-L1 mission can also provide more up-to-date space weather awareness. Once a satellite has neared the end of its life, finally, operators need to ensure controlled re-entry and passivation, or adhere to restrictions on how long dead spacecraft can remain in orbit.

These protections can be augmented by ideas such as bodyguard satellites, autonomous avoidance capabilities, and communications designed to withstand interference, which in turn can be bolstered by international guidelines forged under the UN's auspices, coordinated through the IADC, and enforced through multilateral initiatives. In the final analysis, protecting satellites is no small feat — but the benefits have increasingly outweighed the expenses.

Published - September 22, 2025 05:31 pm IST

The Hindu Explains / space programme

Source: The Hindu
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