Following up with bits from multiple sources that were released AFTER the September summit, first is a piece from The Diplomat:
...Outer space governance found significant attention, with the joint statement stating that the grouping will explore ways to collaborate as well as share data for a range of peaceful purposes, including tracking changing climate patterns, natural disaster response and preparedness, and sustainable uses of oceans and marine resources. The group also agreed they would work on developing norms, guidelines, rules, and principles that would ensure the sustainable use of outer space.
China’s military space prowess is the key reason for this focus. Ensuring a safe, secure, and sustainable outer space has become critical in the face of growing space competition among a number of space players. On the one hand, it is triggering new competitive dynamics, especially in the context of global governance debates; but on the other, the competitive dynamic in space is pushing for new collaborative partnerships with a focus on a number of technological and normative aspects.
These new competitive dynamics are evident in the development of counterspace capabilities including kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons and electronic and cyber warfare capabilities by a number of countries. China, in particular, has made impressive strides in outer space, including its pursuit of counterspace technologies. While the risks from China’s military space program may be directed primarily at the United States, countries like India and Japan cannot afford to ignore the consequences for their national security.
Countries like India and Japan have important stakes in ensuring uninterrupted access to space given the social, economic, and security stakes involved. This would require reviewing the existing international rules governing outer space as well as writing new rules of the road. A second requirement for a stable and secure access to outer space is developing appropriate technological countermeasures that would act as a deterrent in the face of growing counterspace capabilities.
Read the full piece at The Diplomat:
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Considering this article from Foreign Policy is behind a paywall, I'm only reproducing a small portion of the full piece (most of it already visible in the preview):
...Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to privatize one of his country’s most zealously guarded governmental monopolies: the space sector. In a major speech at the inauguration of the Indian Space Association, a new industry grouping this week, Modi called for a new approach, where, he said, the private sector is free to innovate and the government becomes an enabler.
The announcement was a significant step in Modi’s efforts to pull private resources into India’s space sector, which has rapidly fallen behind global peers as space competition heats up in telecommunications, resource exploration, planetary expeditions, and defence. What’s more, Modi’s reorientation of India’s space policy is yet another indication of the profound shift in New Delhi’s geostrategic orientation.
Modi’s government has been exploring common ground on space security issues bilaterally with the United States and also plans to work with India’s partners in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—Australia, Japan, and the United States—to leverage their collective space capabilities. For now, these would include areas like monitoring climate change, managing disasters, and mapping precious natural resources from space. For the first time, New Delhi is also ready to work with Washington and its allies on setting new global norms to manage space, including rules for commercial competition and the use of space for defence.
India’s new space policy began to take shape in June 2020, when Modi announced the first steps to open up India’s space sector to private capital. The new policy mandated that space assets and technologies developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation and other government agencies be accessible to the private sector. New Delhi also announced the creation of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (INSPACe) and appointed a former private sector executive to head it.
India’s liberalized space sector at home has been coupled with greater engagement with India’s partners in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (known as the Quad) on space security, abandoning India’s traditional go-it-alone approach. Bilateral U.S.-Indian conversations on space security cooperation that began under the Trump administration now appear to be close to some concrete steps. When Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden met in Washington last month, the two sides agreed to finalize an agreement on space situational awareness by the end of this year. The agreement is about monitoring and exchanging information on the rapidly growing cloud of objects in near-Earth space, including satellites, disused objects known as “space junk,” and natural bodies. The objective is to keep space navigable as the world’s commercial and military stakes rise.
At the Quad meeting that took place on the same day as the Modi-Biden summit, the four leaders agreed to “consult on rules, norms, guidelines and principles for ensuring the sustainable use of outer space.” Cooperating closely with Washington and the Quad on space is a significant shift in India’s orientation as its traditional inclination has been to address space issues through the United Nations and from the perspective of the global south.
As outer space becomes a geopolitically contested arena, India’s cooperation with its Quad partners in setting new rules could emerge as an important turning point in India’s approach to the global commons. In the 1960s and 1970s, India actively shaped international negotiations on space. Inspiring internationalism drove India toward defining outer space as the “province of mankind.”
Today, however, India might be moving toward a more practical approach to emerging space issues—including regulation of activity on the moon and exploitation of space resources—while retaining the essence of internationalism that defines the current regime on outer space. That, in turn, will demand more intensive Indian cooperation with like-minded countries, not only in the Quad but beyond. In all likelihood, New Delhi’s political cooperation with Washington will soon be reinforced by strong U.S. company participation in growing India’s space capabilities and commerce.
Full piece available at:
foreignpolicy.com
The Quad Commits to Regulating Space
Growing space security threats are proving to be a challenge for existing global governance measures, but consensus on new rules is proving difficult.
By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan
October 01, 2021
By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan
October 01, 2021
...Outer space governance found significant attention, with the joint statement stating that the grouping will explore ways to collaborate as well as share data for a range of peaceful purposes, including tracking changing climate patterns, natural disaster response and preparedness, and sustainable uses of oceans and marine resources. The group also agreed they would work on developing norms, guidelines, rules, and principles that would ensure the sustainable use of outer space.
China’s military space prowess is the key reason for this focus. Ensuring a safe, secure, and sustainable outer space has become critical in the face of growing space competition among a number of space players. On the one hand, it is triggering new competitive dynamics, especially in the context of global governance debates; but on the other, the competitive dynamic in space is pushing for new collaborative partnerships with a focus on a number of technological and normative aspects.
These new competitive dynamics are evident in the development of counterspace capabilities including kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons and electronic and cyber warfare capabilities by a number of countries. China, in particular, has made impressive strides in outer space, including its pursuit of counterspace technologies. While the risks from China’s military space program may be directed primarily at the United States, countries like India and Japan cannot afford to ignore the consequences for their national security.
Countries like India and Japan have important stakes in ensuring uninterrupted access to space given the social, economic, and security stakes involved. This would require reviewing the existing international rules governing outer space as well as writing new rules of the road. A second requirement for a stable and secure access to outer space is developing appropriate technological countermeasures that would act as a deterrent in the face of growing counterspace capabilities.
Read the full piece at The Diplomat:
The Quad Commits to Regulating Space
Growing space security threats are proving to be a challenge for existing global governance measures, but consensus on new rules is proving difficult.
thediplomat.com
++++
Considering this article from Foreign Policy is behind a paywall, I'm only reproducing a small portion of the full piece (most of it already visible in the preview):
India’s Space Program Inches Closer to America and the Quad
In another strategic shift, Modi has opened space activities to private companies and new allies.
By C. Raja Mohan, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the director of the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies.
OCTOBER 13, 2021, 1:28 PM
OCTOBER 13, 2021, 1:28 PM
...Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to privatize one of his country’s most zealously guarded governmental monopolies: the space sector. In a major speech at the inauguration of the Indian Space Association, a new industry grouping this week, Modi called for a new approach, where, he said, the private sector is free to innovate and the government becomes an enabler.
The announcement was a significant step in Modi’s efforts to pull private resources into India’s space sector, which has rapidly fallen behind global peers as space competition heats up in telecommunications, resource exploration, planetary expeditions, and defence. What’s more, Modi’s reorientation of India’s space policy is yet another indication of the profound shift in New Delhi’s geostrategic orientation.
Modi’s government has been exploring common ground on space security issues bilaterally with the United States and also plans to work with India’s partners in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—Australia, Japan, and the United States—to leverage their collective space capabilities. For now, these would include areas like monitoring climate change, managing disasters, and mapping precious natural resources from space. For the first time, New Delhi is also ready to work with Washington and its allies on setting new global norms to manage space, including rules for commercial competition and the use of space for defence.
India’s new space policy began to take shape in June 2020, when Modi announced the first steps to open up India’s space sector to private capital. The new policy mandated that space assets and technologies developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation and other government agencies be accessible to the private sector. New Delhi also announced the creation of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (INSPACe) and appointed a former private sector executive to head it.
India’s liberalized space sector at home has been coupled with greater engagement with India’s partners in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (known as the Quad) on space security, abandoning India’s traditional go-it-alone approach. Bilateral U.S.-Indian conversations on space security cooperation that began under the Trump administration now appear to be close to some concrete steps. When Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden met in Washington last month, the two sides agreed to finalize an agreement on space situational awareness by the end of this year. The agreement is about monitoring and exchanging information on the rapidly growing cloud of objects in near-Earth space, including satellites, disused objects known as “space junk,” and natural bodies. The objective is to keep space navigable as the world’s commercial and military stakes rise.
At the Quad meeting that took place on the same day as the Modi-Biden summit, the four leaders agreed to “consult on rules, norms, guidelines and principles for ensuring the sustainable use of outer space.” Cooperating closely with Washington and the Quad on space is a significant shift in India’s orientation as its traditional inclination has been to address space issues through the United Nations and from the perspective of the global south.
As outer space becomes a geopolitically contested arena, India’s cooperation with its Quad partners in setting new rules could emerge as an important turning point in India’s approach to the global commons. In the 1960s and 1970s, India actively shaped international negotiations on space. Inspiring internationalism drove India toward defining outer space as the “province of mankind.”
Today, however, India might be moving toward a more practical approach to emerging space issues—including regulation of activity on the moon and exploitation of space resources—while retaining the essence of internationalism that defines the current regime on outer space. That, in turn, will demand more intensive Indian cooperation with like-minded countries, not only in the Quad but beyond. In all likelihood, New Delhi’s political cooperation with Washington will soon be reinforced by strong U.S. company participation in growing India’s space capabilities and commerce.
Full piece available at:
India’s Space Program Inches Closer to America and the Quad
In another strategic shift, Modi has opened space activities to private companies and new allies.
foreignpolicy.com
