Opinion: Why The Modi Government Wants A Stronger Military Space Architecture

Operation Sindoor demonstrated how dependent modern joint operations have become on persistent surveillance, secure communications and rapid intelligence cycles

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Modern war depends on assets orbiting 500 to 36,000 kilometres overhead: surveillance, secure communications, navigation and missile warning. India has spent decades treating space largely as a civilian enterprise. Four realities are ending that approach: China’s expanding counter-space arsenal, Indian operations’ growing dependence on space-enabled ISR, the vulnerability of concentrated satellite architectures, and the need for sovereign access to critical capability in wartime.

OPERATIONS NOW RUN THROUGH ORBIT

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Operation Sindoor demonstrated how dependent modern joint operations have become on persistent surveillance, secure communications and rapid intelligence cycles. Space resilience has moved from strategic preference to operational requirement. Several reports noted that directives to fast-track India’s next surveillance constellation were issued from the Ministry of Defence in the days just before Sindoor began; if accurate, that timeline suggests the operation hardened an assessment already forming, rather than triggering it from scratch. The acceleration that followed, confirmed through the SBS-III fast-tracking, is the clearer evidence of intent.

Beijing has spent nearly two decades building a layered counter-space arsenal. Since its 2007 direct ascent anti-satellite test, China has developed co-orbital satellites, ground-based lasers, jamming and cyber tools aimed at adversary satellites, according to assessments by the Secure World Foundation and CSIS. It ran an on-orbit refuelling experiment through the second half of 2025, technology with obvious dual-use potential for shadowing foreign satellites.

Its Yaogan-41 satellite, in geostationary orbit since December 2023, is officially a civilian remote sensing platform........

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