India's Mission Shakti and the establishment of the Defence Space Agency signal a doctrinal shift in India's space posture. Critically evaluate India's space security architecture and the challenges it faces.

Mission Shakti (27 March 2019) destroyed a live satellite in Low Earth Orbit, making India the fourth nation with the capability to defend its assets in space [1]. Coupled with the tri-service Defence Space Agency (DSA), it marks India's transition from a purely civilian space programme to treating space as a warfighting domain — though capability still outpaces doctrine and law.

Markers of the shift

• Kinetic deterrence demonstrated: an indigenous DRDO three-stage interceptor neutralised a target in LEO, signalling counter-space credibility [1].
• Institutional integration: the DSA hosted Exercise Antariksha Abhyas–2024, India's first space warfare exercise, drawing in the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Defence Cyber and Intelligence Agencies [2].
• Civil-military convergence: NavIC navigation and RISAT synthetic-aperture radar deliver all-weather ISR, while the Indian Space Policy 2023 routes private space activity through IN-SPACe authorisation [3].

Strengths

• Strategic autonomy in PNT and imagery, reducing dependence on foreign GNSS during conflict.
• A single-window regulator gives private innovators regulatory certainty without ceding state oversight [3].
• India paired the ASAT test with a low-altitude, debris-minimising choice, preserving normative credibility.

Challenges

• Legal vacuum: the Outer Space Treaty makes states responsible for non-governmental activities (Article VI) but bans only WMD in orbit; no binding rule covers jamming, spoofing or cyber-intrusion [4].
• Dual-use ambiguity: the ICRC notes that widespread dual use and civilian operators of military systems strain IHL's distinction principle — India's commercial satellites could become lawful targets [5].
• Statutory gap: the Space Activities Bill remains unenacted, leaving private operators under executive orders rather than law [6].
• Capability gaps: limited space situational awareness, directed-energy and on-orbit servicing capacity against better-resourced adversaries.

India's architecture is therefore credible in deterrence but thin in law and resilience. Enacting the Space Activities Bill, expanding indigenous space situational awareness, hardening satellites against non-kinetic attack, and championing binding norms at the UN would convert a demonstrated capability into durable, rules-respecting space security consistent with India's treaty commitments.