On January 11, China fired a ground-based ballistic missile into space to destroy one of its own weather satellites. It was not a great technological leap for China, except that it proved that China had missile guidance capability accurate enough to hit a small moving target 530 miles away. But what China did was to put the US on notice that it would not have a free run for its military in space.
A Little over a year ago, Indian Space Research Organisation Director Madhavan Nair started a debate on whether India can achieve its space objectives by continuing with unmanned, robotic missions alone or whether manned missions are necessary. Now, the debate stands recast.
The world stands at a moment of transformation. A combination of geopolitical/geostrategic change, accelerating pace of technology and the ongoing innovations in military thinking are launching back into space a part of the revolution that in the first place came from up there. As space historian Robert Zimmermann wrote recently, "We are at the dawn of a new colonial age''.
The ability to identify the source of attack on one’s satellites, on-demand spacecraft launch capability, spacecraft autonomy and scoot-rendezvous- inspect-destroy capability are only some components of the Space Control capability that the US is currently developing -- in anticipation of a future when battles for supremacy on the earth will be fought in space as well.
