M4L7: Space diplomacy

Back in the year, IDSA published a document carrying the information that China has launched a satellite for Pakistan. Then in 2012, it flashed another set of news. China to launch satellite for Sri Lanka. And then, certain think tanks published that China is trying to do the same for Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh and all the other countries surrounding India.

On March 19, 2013, The Economic Times wrote, ‘China's satellite deals with neighbors jolt Indian security agencies into action.’

We are already aware of the fact that, China has made a string of pearls and an underwater wall of seabed sensors. The question was, is China trying to build a string of pearls in Space?

In the year 2008-2010, the then PM of India, Manmohan Singh, had proposed to use satellite technology for South East Asian countries. However, this idea never took off. In the year 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra came to power, he proposed a SAARC satellite, with each country possessing one independent transponder on it. Maldives and Bhutan both praised India for implementing neighborhood first policy, through the SAARC platform. However, Pakistan later on, withdrew itself. The satellite was launched through GSAT 9 in the year 2017.

At this moment, most of the neighbors are using satellite services provided by Chinese government agencies. India has decided to extend IRNSS Services to all its neighbors. Currently Sri Lanka uses the services of GAGAN platform to control the flights.

Well, we are talking about neighbors. The Chinese believe that their rival is USA. They believe that Pax Americana is soon to be replaced by Pax Sinica. Therefore, they think at global levels.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit. Its first component was launched into orbit in 1998, with the first long-term residents arriving in November 2000. The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields. It is a joint project between five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada).

In 2007, Chinese vice-minister of science and technology Li Xueyong said that China would like to participate in the ISS. Despite growing trade ties between both countries, a close scientific partnership with China is usually seen with skepticism by several American politicians. In the year 2010, it was reported that Rep. John Culberson urged the then US President Barack Obama not to allow further contact between NASA and the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

So, what did they do? Chinese built their own International Space station known as Tiangong and they have offered access to all the nations. By the way, the life of International Space Station shall be over in 2028. And United States spends 77% of the cost of ISS. It has already clarified that it won’t be paying for the expenses of it after 2024.

On 10^th of December 2017, the International Policy Digest published, ‘After China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a Space Initiative?’

How should India balance this? Some experts believe that India should contribute in Space sector at global level by creating a space weather forecasting system, that can monitor space debris.

Space is a global common. ‘Global commons’ is a term typically used to describe international, supranational, and global resource domains in which common-pool resources are found. No country or institution is supposed to dominate it. Global commons therefore include the earth's shared natural resources, such as the high oceans, the atmosphere and outer space and the Antarctic in particular.

But  do you know, that this global common is also getting polluted? Just like air pollution, water pollution and land pollution, the space is also getting polluted. They are called as orbital debris or space debris and they constitute man-made, non-functional objects floating in space orbits. These constitute parts of rocket bodies or other things that are either discarded or get separated from the space craft like batteries, paint flakes, solar panels etc. The low earth orbit is the most polluted among all the orbits. To avoid a satellite becoming a space debris, once its operational life is over, it is sent to outer space or pushed towards an orbit, that is known as graveyard orbit.

And let’s not forget that certain countries have big ticket investments in space-based technologies. These include internet providers that includes video content streaming companies, cloud market places (like Amazon cloud, Google drive etc.), online internet-based service providers, military and security agencies that use satellite data for warfare planning and others. With ongoing advancements, we also find an increasing number of companies that provide services related to automation / digitalization of industries or provide services that are based on GPS (like Ola, Uber, Swiggy etc.) The nation hosting companies of this kind faces a major risk of disruption if their satellites encounter any space debris or collide with it. The International space treaty is absolutely outdated and the scenario in which it was made has completely changed, which makes it irrelevant to resolve the issue caused by the space debris that are put by satellites and astronauts belonging to other countries.

Now say, a country wants to expand its influence and dominate this sector by taking leadership in managing the space debris. Japan, is the first country to try doing it. The Japanese Space Agency JAXA had launched a satellite under the project Konoutri Tether Integrated Experiment to clear space debris. Although a failure, it marks the first step about any country that wants to increase influence by taking leadership of this kind i.e. clearing space debris. If tomorrow morning the world powers come together to regulate space sector, will India be able to share a seat with such countries? Think about it and post your answer on my email.