Ensuring security, safety and sustainability has become the new mantra for many spacefaring nations in the 21st century. The presence of space debris is viewed as a major threat to satellites in orbit. For the last couple of years, states are undertaking precautions like adjusting the altitudes of their satellites to avoid collisions (even the international space station is forced to take such actions). Also, the world’s rapidly changing geopolitical and geostrategic landscape is making the possibility of counterspace operations and weaponization of outer space more real.

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Ajey Lele is a research fellow at India’s Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and author of the book “Asian Space Race: Rhetoric or Reality?”