India Space Security Crisis: PSLV-C62 Failure and the Bigger Strategic Problem
There is more to the PSLV-C62 launch failure than just a rocket or the Indian Space Research Organization’s (Isro) shortcomings. In an era of multi-domain operations, this is the fifth ISRO failure in the span of seven years, but it ought to spotlight broader issues that are inhibiting the advancement of the Indian space domain as a military force multiplier and a national space power.
India’s Space Ecosystem Falling Behind Global Powers
Given that India has the fourth-largest economy in the world, an in-depth look at the Indian space ecosystem shows that it is steadily lagging behind the US, China, Russia, the EU, and Japan, the traditional space powers, in all three space-related domains: upstream, consisting of satellite constellations; midstream, which involves the rapid aggregation of space data; and downstream, which deals with revenue generation. India may have weakened its ranking as the nation with the largest percentage of small satellite launches worldwide, from 35% in 2017 to 0% in 2024, due to its main focus on prestige initiatives like Gaganyaan.
NavIC Setbacks and India’s Navigation Vulnerability
India’s development of its own satellite navigation constellation, NavIC, was prompted by the US’s use of Selective Availability of GPS signals during the Kargil War. But India has lagged since then. Even though ISRO’s GSLV-F15 rocket was launched successfully in January 2025, India’s second-generation NavIC satellite NVS-02 was unable to reach its final orbit due to an issue. Just four of India’s seven NavIC satellites are now operational, and even those are nearing the end of their useful lives.
Manufacturing Delays, Orbital Slot Loss, and Launch Bottlenecks
Slowdowns in satellite manufacture, time running out for available orbital slots, and a poor launch frequency due to launch rocket reliability problems and confined launch facilities are India’s three key commercial space bottlenecks. India is even behind schedule when it comes to International Telecommunication Union (ITU) files, despite the fact that American and Chinese businesses have filed hundreds of thousands of applications to grab spectrum and orbital slots.
China’s Expanding Space Influence in South Asia
In the meantime, China’s expansion into South Asia has been made easier by changes to its satellite launch architecture. China deployed four satellites for Pakistan in 2025, and by reducing SUPARCO’s (Pakistan’s counterpart of ISRO) budget by 90%, a Chinese company called Piesat signed a $406 million contract with Pakistan for 20 satellites. China also launched a satellite for Nepal last year; the Indian PSLV-C62 flight lost a Nepalese satellite.
Data Sovereignty Gaps and Dependence on Foreign Platforms
Without data self-sufficiency or data sovereignty in the space sector, Indian foreign policy cannot support the strategic autonomy it consistently emphasizes. The majority of Indians still use Google Maps, which gives out information and money to an American company, even though MapmyIndia’s Mappls navigation software is more appropriate for Indian conditions. This stands in stark contrast to China, which forbids Google from entering its borders and has its own Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Beidou. It ought to be noted that Elon Musk consistently declined to offer Starlink to Ukraine when that nation most needed it, even as India signs satellite communication agreements with his firm.
India Space Security Crisis: Operation Sindoor and India’s Intelligence Blind Spots
Even if the data was purposely delayed, Operation Sindoor demonstrated India’s vital reliance on American and other foreign remote sensing satellite constellations. However, from January 1 to April 27, 2025, China consistently supplied Pakistan with 129 civilian commercial satellite photos of Pahalgam, which enabled Pakistan to organize the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam. The lack of financing and a roadmap has held back formation-flying ELINT constellations from emerging from India’s first electronic intelligence (ELINT) experimental satellite. In contrast, the Pakistani Air Force claimed to have been able to electronically identify every IAF aircraft during Operation Sindoor owing to China’s ELINT array, which consists of more than 170 satellites spread across 15 constellations.
India’s Defence Space Agency was established in 2019 and is still a lower-ranked, under-powered tri-service organization with non-specialists, in contrast to the US, China, and Russia, all of whom have their own military space forces. Because the three armed services and a number of agencies still operate in isolated data silos, they are unable to create a shared operating picture, which is necessary for military commanders to make prompt and accurate choices. Even Pakistan’s Air Force has a space command that was established in 2021, fully operational by 2024, and connected with its cyber command.
India Space Security Crisis: China’s Overwhelming Satellite Numbers and Military Edge
Since China’s defense budget is three times larger than India’s, a 3:1 or even 10:1 ratio in favor of China in the satellite launch sector could have been justified because, unlike India, China’s space program is under its military. The disparity is far greater, though, as 396 of the more than 1,000 remote sensing satellites in operation in 2024 are Chinese. Given its current launch frequency—just one defense satellite was launched between 2023 and 2025—even India’s Space-Based Surveillance-III strategy, which aims to launch 52 defense satellites by 2030, is likely to fall significantly short.
Pakistan is expected to gain a significant military advantage over India in the near future due to the Chinese launches. A direct purchase of a foreign satellite under Indian flags or the launch of an Indian commercial satellite from overseas will, in the short term, make India somewhat more independent than its daily reliance on foreign satellites to obtain satellite imagery for tracking the swift changes in its neighbors.
Atmanirbharta in Space: From Rhetoric to Urgency
China and other countries’ qualitative and quantitative advances in counter-space capabilities pose a further threat to India’s meager space resources. Chinese spacecraft frequently maneuver close to Indian satellites, and during the Galwan standoff, the Chinese military’s ground-based capabilities in Xinjiang and Tibet attempted to jam Indian satellites. For India, Atmanirbharta in the space sector is a strategic need rather than an option. Drones and other combat platforms have been introduced by India more quickly as a result of Operation Sindoor, but there is still a lack of strategic clarity on space policies. Time-bound accountability of space ecosystem stakeholders and some crucial decisions are necessary because Sindoor 2.0 is most likely unavoidable.