India shoots down own satellite, declares self 'space power'

India shot down a satellite of its own with a missile on Wednesday, joining the world’s most advanced space superpowers; and prompting its arch rival Pakistan to urge avoiding militarization of space.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a television broadcast that an anti-satellite missile fired from a testing facility in Odisha, eastern India, downed the live satellite in orbit at about 300 kilometers in “a difficult operation” that lasted some three minutes.

“Our scientists shot down a live satellite 300 kilometers away in space, in low-earth orbit,” Modi said.

He hailed India’s first test of such technology as a major breakthrough that establishes it as a space power. India would only be the fourth country to have used such an anti-satellite weapon after the United States, Russia and China, Modi added.

“India has made an unprecedented achievement today.”

“India registered its name as a space power.”

The Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the latest test was aimed at protecting India's assets in space against foreign attacks.

"The capability achieved... provides credible deterrence against threats to our growing space-based assets from long-range missiles, and proliferation in the types and numbers of missiles,” the statement read.

The three-minute test in the lower atmosphere ensured there was no debris in space and the remnants would "decay and fall back on to the earth within weeks," it added.

Anti-satellite weapons allow for attacks on enemy satellites and provide a technology base to intercept ballistic missiles. Such capabilities have raised fears of weaponization of space and setting off a race between rivals.

SS