To give a context to why this is important (even though technologically it is much easier to shoot a satellite).<p>Western Nations often have this tendency of pass international laws with exceptions for themselves using ridiculous arguments. Such as nuclear proliferation treaties which allows existing nuclear powers to build more nuclear war heads but does not allow others to build even the first nuke.<p>India's NSA Ajit Doval in 2011 had pointed out that this is going to happen to satellite sabotage as well. The existing players will gang up to ban such weapons while making exemptions for themselves. By publicly showing and acknowledging this capability India has ensured a seat at the table in future.
The first minutes of WWIII will see a multitude of satellites shot 'down', followed by cascading space debris beget space junk.<p>""In the journey of every nation there are moments that bring utmost pride and have a historic impact on generations to come. One such moment is today,"" U+1F644
Satellites are sitting ducks. This feat is as admirable as kicking down a sandcastle on the beach.<p>We need an international treaty banning this because the detritus produced in the form of hundreds of thousands of new fragments in orbit is one of the largest threats to future space development.
The thing about shooting down another nation's satellites in a military conflict - your own satellites are equally as vulnerable. It's like starting a nuclear war.<p>I certainly hope that among the nations and people who are developing these weapons, they have a number of game theory people who have thoroughly considered all of the ramifications of mutually assured destruction.<p>In a major conflict, the US and Russia have a number of geostationary and MEO orbit military satellite communications systems which are outside of the reach of any LEO antisatellite weapons (capable of shooting down things up in up to approximately 550x550km circular orbits).<p>On an Indian specific note, this threat has to be aimed only at whatever Pakistan might put into orbit. At present Pakistan has negligible ability to launch anything themselves, and very little actual Pakistani owned/manufactured/controlled satellites in low earth orbit. But who else can it possibly be considered a threat to?<p>India is hopefully not foolish enough to think that they could get into a shooting war with China and come out ahead.
Strangely, I'm not seeing a wide enough condemnation of this. Another country is building destructive weapons, bringing down LEOs; how is this a good thing? All the while the region suffers from chronic poverty, poor access to clean water and basic services.<p>Sending a science mission to space is great and rightly lauded, this is wasteful and energies spent better elsewhere.
Such a huge step toward more peace in the world. What do you expect when world major democracy advocates are also the world major weapon sellers.<p>I don't think there is any technological glory on destroying a satellite that deserves such a public announcement. Perhaps it is far less complicated than putting a satellite into space which is what India was already good at it.
Just wondering, is it possible to use a big enough mirror and just reflect sunlight to do the same thing? Though this only means satellites can only be destroyed during daytime.
Does the fact it was on low orbite would mitigate the risk of adding-up even more space debris to the current graveyard of debris? I remember it was a big concern/critique when China did its own attempt. I don't know enough about this test/space to tell if it's different this time.
Is there any video/photo footage of this?<p>We can see space-x events from 32 different angles and audio of everything happening, I kind of assume you would record these events too?
This is critical for the geopolitical stability of the region. Pakistan, China have traditionally assumed that India lacks the political will as well as the technological capacity to build advanced weapons such as these. This will be a big deterrence and help bring it peace to the region.<p>I would not be surprised if India announces ICBMs in the next 5 years. A country that can place 100s of satellites in space as well as place geostationary satellites, has the necessary rocket technology to build an ICBM. Just because they don't talk about it, doesn't mean they can't do it.<p>I think India is in the midst of adopting an active deterrence policy. Being passive hasn't yielded good results.