India opens its space industry to private companies India has decided to open its space industry to private companies. India has a thriving space programme, with the Mars Orbiter Mission that has circled the red planet for over five years and the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System GPS alternative among its most prominent achievements. But to date all space activity in …
India is militarizing the outer space and now the private industry has to play its role. India has accelerated space modernization in the past decade, and the Indo-US nuclear deal of 2005 is the main driver. When the United States and India built closer relationships in exploration of space and navigation systems in 2005, Indian scientists, according to reliable reports, trying to develop an ICBM. The deal began to provide India with new ways of transferring technology. The growing partnership between India and the United States relating to space has begun to further improve the efficiency of former’s missiles. Furthermore, the inclusion of India in the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) has allowed the development of technology with significant military consequences. Therefore, there is no such thing like peaceful uses of space technology in minds of Indian policymakers.
Citation, please ? What are your sources for saying that India is "militarizing" outer space when international treaties ban that ?
And making an ICBM is not militarizing outer space. ICBM are ballistic, it's in the name, meaning they go up and come back down again. It's nothing new either, quite a few countries have them.
Space has been 'militarized' the moment Sputnik launched. But I doubt India does anything more than take pictures of the earth in "strategic" locations, just like everybody else.
Actually if they do a LOT of "space port rental" to companies in India AND from other nations, it could give them an advantage over other nations that aren't so lucky as to be so close to the equator.
Though for polar and other 'non-equatorial' orbits, there's no advantage to such a location. So spy satellites won't be sent from there, most likely.
The earth is roughly 24,000 miles in diameter, so it's moving about 1,000 miles an hour near the equator. That compared to Canaveral, which is about 28 degrees North, making it roughly 880 mph. This difference is significant enough but the latitude of the Baikonur Cosmodrome is ~46 degrees, which is only ~690mph. So launching from India gives you a ~300mph boost over what you'd get at Baikonur.
(the difference between 8 deg N and 5 deg N, to point out, is insignificant - cos(latitude) * 1000mph for the approximate rotational speed at that point on earth).
@Bob. Locating your launch site near the equator has nothing to with the extra speed gained from the rotation of the earth, a few hundred mph difference from that is insignificant when you need 17,000mph to reach orbit.
The latitude of the launch site determines which orbits you can reach easily, i.e the latitude of the launch site is the minimum inclination of the initial orbit. To reduce the inclination to get to an equatorial orbit (for geostationary satellites) requires a lot more fuel for the transfer stage, the further north (or south) of the equator you launch from. That reduces the amount of useful payload the rocket can deliver.
India has the ambitions to enhance its space capabilities as a part of its Defence Doctrine. This ASAT test by New Delhi touches a number of important issues which endanger the contemporary security environment of South Asia and the international security. At international level it generates a debate on space policy, politics and the weaponization. International community gave different reaction on Indian ASAT test. Indian missile test raised concerns in Pakistan as its security threats mainly coming from eastern border.
In April 2019, India established the Defence Space Agency (DSA) as an interim measure to command the military's space capabilities. All of this meant that India had to have a much more nuanced position than a blanket approach that opposed any militarization or weaponization of outer space. India has been consistently working on the weaponization of space and violating international norms.
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