India’s Defence Space Agency Scouts For Advanced Tech To Deal With Threats In And From Space

India’s counter-space activities organisation Defence Space Agency (DSA) has formally started scouting technologies to enhance its abilities to tackle threats in and from space.

The DSA has made proposals to several companies to avail technologies that give complete space situational awareness (SSA) solutions that can assess, recognise and track assets of the enemy, Times of India reports.

It will also be tasked to raise flags over any impending attacks and a request for information (RFI) regarding the same was released in January 2021. Companies have time till March 2021 to respond to the same. Moreover, the DSA is in the lookout for a system that can combine the available surveillance data from different sources into a common operating picture (COP).

This will be done to improve the evaluation of possible threat and also optimise the efficiency of Indian operations in land, sea, space and air domains. The agency is also in the search of categorising space objects and even obtaining analysis tools for predictive assessment.

The central government formulated the DSA to counter China’s development and procurement of a range of space capabilities to restrict or prevent the enemy's use of space-related assets in times of crisis or conflicts. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has commissioned a few projects but the DSA aims to further stimulate India’s progress in this sector.