Tag Archive for: moon

India’s space triumph

In 2014, after the Mars Orbiter Mission, known as Mangalyaan, made India the first Asian country to reach Mars orbit, and the first country ever to do so in its maiden attempt, the New York Times published a cartoon. Well-fed Westerners lounged inside a house labelled ‘Elite Space Club’, while India, represented by a turbaned peasant with a cow in tow, knocked on the door. It was a patronising and racist image, and it triggered a furore in India.

Now, the Chandrayaan-3 mission has made India the first country to land a lunar rover on the moon’s south pole, and a new cartoon began making the rounds. This time, the peasant and his cow are inside the house, now labelled ‘Moon South Pole’, while Americans, Russians and others line up at the door, rockets in hand, to request admission.

Indians are proud of their space program, for good reason. One of the world’s oldest and most ambitious, it arose from the Physical Research Laboratory, established in Ahmedabad in 1947, the year of India’s independence and brutal partition with Pakistan. In 1962, India’s visionary first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, created the Indian National Committee for Space Research, marking the country’s official entry into space exploration. In 1969, INCOSPAR became the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Since then, ISRO has undertaken three missions to the moon (Chandrayaan-1, -2, and -3) in addition to the one to Mars, and created its own launch vehicles and satellites. India also launched its first solar mission, Aditya-L1, this month, and aims to have two or three people in low-earth orbit by the end of this year. (An Indian astronaut orbited the planet on a Soviet spacecraft in 1984.)

India owes its remarkable progress in space exploration in large part to Nehru’s dedication to developing a ‘scientific temper’ among the Indian people, his understanding of technology’s role in national advancement, and his faith in the country’s scientists. Though India was beset by poverty, illiteracy, food insecurity and disease, Nehru knew that it must—and could—aim for the stars.

Nehru’s doctrine of self-reliance, within tight budgetary constraints, had an enduring influence on India’s space program, exemplified by ISRO’s decision to take a slower, fuel-saving approach to the moon. Both Mangalyaan and Chandrayaan-3 were the least expensive ventures of their kind, costing about a tenth of equivalent NASA missions. They cost less even than Hollywood depictions of space missions: Mangalyaan cost less than the film Gravity, and Chandrayaan-3 less than Interstellar.

ISRO’s strengths extend well beyond frugality. With a focus on indigenous development of technologies and techniques, it has become a premier manufacturer of both launch vehicles and satellites, and a sought-after provider of low-cost launch services to other countries. Its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, with 24 successful flights, has a proven track record. In February 2017, India launched a record-breaking 104 (mostly American) satellites simultaneously on a single rocket.

How far we have come since the early 1960s, when a classic photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson showed Indian rocket parts being transported on a bullock cart. And this is just the beginning: India’s space program is set literally to skyrocket. Experts predict that India could account for at least 10% of the global space economy in the next decade, up sharply from 2% currently.

India’s space program bolsters its internal development, having made important contributions even in seemingly unrelated areas, such as disaster management, education, health care, agriculture, fisheries and urban planning. Moreover, it serves India’s global diplomacy, enhancing the country’s credibility and influence. Those who once scoffed at the idea that a poor developing country aspired to send rockets into space must concede that India is a technological force to be reckoned with.

As India’s lander touched down on the moon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wisely resisted parochial triumphalism and hailed the achievement as a victory for ‘all of humanity’. But he also correctly noted that the achievement ‘mirrors the aspirations and capabilities of 1.4 billion Indians’.

By showcasing its technological prowess, India’s space program reminds the world not only of its innovative capabilities, but also of its capacity to help shape solutions to global challenges in other areas, from cyberspace regulation to peacekeeping. India is showing the world that it can be a standard-setter, rather than just a follower of rules made by developed countries.

Chandrayaan-3’s success strengthens the confidence with which India faces the world. The country has spent the year presiding over the G20 and is an influential voice for the global south. But it has also been walking a geopolitical tightrope lately, playing leading roles in both the Quad (alongside Australia, Japan and the United States) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (with Russia and China). While its relations with Western countries have never been closer, it shares a tense disputed frontier with China, and has an increasingly complicated relationship with its traditional partner, Russia.

How these relationships, and India’s global role more broadly, will evolve remains to be seen. But the country’s achievements in space undoubtedly strengthen its diplomatic hand, not least because of the respect they inspire in other countries.

Looking up at the sky after Chandrayaan-3, Indians can contemplate a glorious future. New horizons beckon.

The Quad must go to space

A historic first meeting of the leaders of the countries of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue took place last month, albeit via video link, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison, US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks. On the agenda were a range of security issues, including how best to respond to an assertive China, the need to work together on responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and the necessity of coordinated responses to the long-term challenge posed by climate change.

One item that should have been on the agenda is closer cooperation on space policy. It was a missed opportunity, given that all four countries are space powers and have a mutual interest in security and stability in the space domain. So, what should the Quad states do in space?

First, the Quad states should support the UK-sponsored resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on 7 December. Resolution 75/36 seeks to establish new ‘norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviours’ that reduce the ‘risks of misunderstanding and miscalculations with respect to outer space’.

There are no guarantees that greater effort in elucidating ‘norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviour’ will lead to new legal and regulatory arrangements that all states will follow. China and Russia are moving rapidly to develop a full suite of counter-space capabilities, and India tested an anti-satellite weapon, or ASAT, in 2019. So, there’s a challenge here given that Western democracies are concerned about the threat from adversaries developing ASATs but are seeking to cooperate with India when it’s doing the same thing.

The best response to the ASAT threat is to strengthen international cooperation to place diplomatic pressure on Beijing and Moscow, and work with New Delhi to find alternative approaches to space security while strengthening credible deterrence in space. The enhanced legal frameworks that resolution 75/36 could bring about are just such an outcome. Quad members should support 75/36 and work together to strengthen the legal basis for space diplomacy and regulatory structures that reduce the risk of misunderstanding and constrain opportunities for malicious activity in space.

Second, efforts towards more effective norms of behaviour must be integrated with greater space resilience in the face of emerging threats. Resilience will reinforce deterrence in space, which will make the use of ASATs less likely. This effort must be led with greater cooperation on developing exquisite space domain awareness, or SDA, which seeks awareness of activities in space by states and non-state actors, such as commercial companies, to reduce the risk of misunderstandings, while strengthening attribution and denying anonymity to actors that are behaving irresponsibly. SDA will enhance our ability to manage an increasingly congested and contested space domain.

Australia’s efforts are already well known, with cooperation between Australia and the US focused on the establishment of a C-band radar and an optical space surveillance telescope at Exmouth in Western Australia under Project AIR 3029 Phase 2. Defence project JP 9360 is set to expand that capability, and there are information-sharing arrangements through the 2014 Combined Space Operations (CSpO) initiative that includes the Five Eyes, as well as France and Germany.

Achieving exquisite SDA—an ability to clearly see activities in space, from low-earth orbit (LEO) to geosynchronous orbit (GEO), on a 24/7 basis—demands technical capabilities such as networks of ground- and space-based space situational awareness sensors. Data from these sensor networks would be integrated in places such as the Australian Space Operations Centre, or AUSSpOC, which sits at the Australian Defence Force’s Headquarters Joint Operations Command.

A step forward for the Quad in space would be to bring India and Japan into the CSpO initiative, in the same way that France and Germany are members, even though they’re not Five Eyes countries. Such a move would enable greater information-sharing and strengthen Quad members’ space cooperation with Canada, New Zealand, the UK, France and Germany.

Resilience as a means to strengthen credible space deterrence isn’t just about achieving exquisite SDA. The Quad’s cooperation in space should also focus on developing resilient space architectures that embrace greater use of low-cost small satellites to spread space support across disaggregated constellations. That should be complemented by greater government support for the establishment of low-cost, responsive sovereign space-launch capabilities. Launch centres in Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory and at Whaler’s Way in South Australia would be well positioned to support the space-launch needs of Quad members. Nhulunbuy, for example, is close to the equator and thus able to offer lower cost per kilogram into orbit than other launch sites.

Finally, looking beyond the immediate ‘LEO to GEO’ near-earth environment, there are opportunities for Quad members to work together on the next great milestone in human space exploration—the return to the moon as a step towards eventual human missions to Mars. Australia already supports NASA’s Project Artemis, which aims to return US astronauts to the moon in this decade, and Japan also has agreed to participate, notably with provision of a module to the Gateway lunar-orbit platform.

Associated with the return to the moon, the Artemis Accords have been established to promote more responsible behaviour in space, and they reinforce the centrality of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. India should sign the Artemis Accords as a first step and then work with Australia, Japan and the US to develop a more ambitious program of lunar exploration.

The Australian Space Agency’s ‘Moon to Mars’ initiative promotes opportunities for Australia’s commercial space sector to directly support Project Artemis. It’s time to expand these efforts by considering how Australia, Japan, India and the US can engage in closer cooperation on and around the moon. Establishing a regular dialogue on space cooperation would chart a path for the Quad to the moon, Mars and beyond in coming decades.

Seven Sisters project taking Australia further into space

In a previous article, I made the case for Australia developing and launching its own interplanetary mission—a probe to the moon, or to Mars or other locations in the inner solar system—that exploited commercial small-satellite technologies and low-cost sovereign space launch facilities. Such a step would raise Australia’s international profile as a new space power and in turn provide opportunities for our growing commercial space sector to secure investment from domestic and overseas partners.

So, it’s very welcome news that a consortium of companies in South Australia, led by small-satellite developer Fleet Space Technologies, is preparing for a series of missions to the moon as well as planning for future missions to Mars.

The Seven Sisters project aims to support the US Artemis space program’s goal of returning humans to the moon by assisting with exploration techniques, remote operations and communications—hence the project’s name: in Greek mythology, the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, were the companions of Artemis, the goddess of the moon.

Over the next few months, Fleet Space will launch three small satellites—Centauri 3, 4 and 5—into low-earth orbit, where they’ll connect with a set of terrestrial sensors. The sensor data will inform the development of future satellites and low-power, passive surface sensors that can generate deep subsurface modelling to support the hunt for water and other valuable resources on the moon.

The next step will be sending new satellites to the moon in 2023 as part of the Artemis program’s commercial lunar payload service. A second mission in 2024 will deploy large arrays on the lunar surface, along with rovers. Similar missions are being planned to Mars in 2025 and 2027.

Seven Sisters was established in 2019, but planning for the lunar mission was kept under wraps and details were only released publicly in December. The project will bring together some of Australia’s leading capabilities in space.

Fleet Space has joined forces with AROSE, a consortium that specialises in remote operations technology; geospatial mapping company Fugro; and the University of Adelaide and University of New South Wales. The other participants are energy technology start-up Unearthed, mining company Oz Minerals, and small-satellite firm Tyvak Australia, whose parent company is based in the US.

The project will be Australia’s first ‘moonshot’ mission, a concept first raised in the civil space strategy released by the Australian Space Agency in April 2019. The agency’s hope is that such missions will ‘inspire the nation and provide stretch, increase capability, and build collaboration in the space sector’. Together with Australia’s commitment of $150 million for our commercial space sector to participate in the Artemis project and the government’s signing of NASA’s Artemis Accords last October, the Seven Sisters project reinforces the message that Australia’s space ambitions go beyond simply a ground segment or a few satellites in orbit.

This is a logical next step for our space sector. It complements the local manufacture of satellites for terrestrial communication systems and the establishment of a sovereign space launch capability. Pursuing Australian interplanetary missions would represent a further maturation of our rapidly developing space sector, which is perhaps one of the most vibrant in the world.

The project demonstrates that, through the private sector, small and middle powers like Australia can achieve rapid success in ‘Space 2.0’ and ‘newSpace’. It highlights the way space exploration is changing in the 21st century, enabling commercial companies, including small start-ups, to be active in space and to take the lead in some areas. Sending probes to the moon and across the inner solar system has become more achievable and affordable, and such efforts shouldn’t be seen as being open only to the largest space actors.

It also highlights how quickly the national debate on space has changed. A few years ago, Australian thinking on space was dominated by a risk-averse and limited perspective and an emphasis on ground or ‘user’ segments. Now we have a more balanced and ambitious vision of our future that focuses on ‘upstream’ space-based capabilities. Whether it’s launching satellites into earth orbit or space probes to the moon and planets—ultimately, and ideally, from Australian launch sites—we seem to be on the right path.

The same shift to more sophisticated thinking can be seen in Australian defence and national security debates on the role of space. Most national commentators now recognise the benefits of a sovereign space capability for our defence organisation, whether for communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or for other space-control-related tasks, including responsive launch.

Key tasks over the next two years for Defence will be developing a coherent, unclassified space strategy and thinking about organisational reform to integrate a greater degree of space expertise into the department and the Australian Defence Force—perhaps by establishing an ADF Space Command within Air Force HQ. In undertaking this review, Defence will have to be forward-looking, ambitious and ready to identify and exploit new technologies, most of which are emerging from the civil space sector.

Exploiting that speed of change and harnessing an ability to take an interesting idea or technology and move quickly to turn it into credible and useful capability—for civil or scientific space applications, or for defence and national security—will be vital. The Seven Sisters project has demonstrated how adoption of a new concept or technology can open up new prospects for national and international collaboration.

By moving quickly to identify an opportunity to support the Artemis program, the Seven Sisters project shows that applying technological expertise to rapidly achieve ambitious and bold goals can create opportunities for further development. The project could see Australia play an expanding and ongoing role in supporting a permanent human presence on the lunar surface by detecting and mining water and other resources necessary to support a lunar base. That’s one huge leap from days past, when Australia’s space ambitions were planted firmly on the ground.