India's first space war drill, IndSpaceEx, to kickstart this week: Report

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The Indian armed forces plan to conduct the country's first ever stimulated space warfare exercise this week, The Times of India has reported.

The exercise, the report states, aims to assess "imminent threats" to the nation beyond earth. It also plans on drafting a joint space doctrine for future battles.

The report states that the tri-service integrated defence staff, or the IDS, plans on conducting two-day IndSpaceEx with all the stakeholders involved on July 25 and 26. The development comes on the background of China's growing influence in space defence and counter-space capabilities, according to the report.

China has been, in recent years, developing a wide range of anti-satellite (A-Sat) weapons. According to the report, the country has been working on building weapons that are both kinetic in the shape of co-orbital killer satellites and lasers and electro-magnetic pulse weapons, which are non-kinetic in nature, officials told the newspaper.

"PM Narendra Modi said the A-Sat test in March was conducted to make India stronger and more secure as well as further peace and harmony," a senior official said.

The official was referring to the  March 27 launch of a 19-tonne interceptor missile to destroy the 740-kilogram Microsat-R satellite, at an altitude of 283 km in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO), in a ‘hit-to-kill’ mode. The launch was under ‘Mission Shakti’.

"In line with this vision, IndSpaceEx is being conducted to identify key challenges and shortfalls if a conflict escalates in space dimension. A leading Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) has also been engaged to work on the potential solutions," the official added.

According to the report, India has largely been following an expansive civilian space programme and has limited military use of space to intelligence, surveillance and navigation. However, the A-Sat test and the approval for tri-service Defence Space Agency signals India's willingness to develop offensive capabilities in space, the report states.

"There is the need to explore effective tactical, operational and strategic exploitation of the final frontier of warfare. We cannot keep twiddling our thumbs while China zooms ahead. We cannot match China but must have capabilities to protect our space assets," another senior official told the newspaper, adding that China's counter-space weaponry could have the ability to "blind and deafen" the Indian armed forces.

"China, after all, has developed both soft and hard-kill space weapons," the official said.