Fifty years after the launch of India’s first satellite, Aryabhata, aboard a Soviet rocket, India’s space programme is reaching its pinnacle. In 2025, ISRO placed NISAR, the world’s most advanced and costly Earth-observation satellite, into orbit through a landmark partnership with NASA; a collaboration unthinkable during the US-led sanctions of the 1990s.
The successful space docking exercise in early 2025 and the launch of ultra-heavy BlueBird-6 satellite aboard the LVM3-M6 ‘Bahubali’ rocket last week further underscore how far India has come as a global player in outer space. India’s rise as a major space power has been forged through constraint as well as cooperation, and it is now being accelerated by ambitious deep-space plans and an expanding private sector. Although outer space is often seen through the lens of scientific endeavour, this trajectory has been shaped by prevailing geopolitics, resilience, and shifting global power.
Five decades back, in April 1975, when the experimental satellite Aryabhata (named after the ancient Indian mathematician and astronomer) rose into orbit on the back of a Soviet Kosmos rocket, a threshold was crossed. Coming shortly after India’s first nuclear test, codenamed “Smiling Buddha” in 1974, this signalled India’s intention to be an active stakeholder in the frontiers of advanced science despite modest means, and in the face of exclusive global groupings like the then-evolving Non-Proliferation Treaty regime.
Entirely designed and fabricated in India, Aryabhata’s limited 360-kilogram mass and five days in outer space heralded a new era. Since then, India transformed from a fledgling participant into one of the most consequential spacefaring nations. Behind Aryabhata’s success lay Cold War geopolitics; Moscow’s growing rivalry with Beijing in the 1970s warranted an Asian counterweight. This cooperation brought the two countries closer, and the Soviet Union was instrumental in ensuring that Aryabhata was heavier than China’s first satellite, Dong Fang Hong 1. While Indian and Soviet collaboration expanded, American support for the Indian space programme waned, but France emerged as a key partner simultaneously. This was reflective of the broader direction of Indian foreign policy as it balanced non-alignment despite a distinct tilt toward the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s.
Space cooperation offered a unique domain where superpower support aligned with Indian aspirations to be a leader of the Global South. It also precluded India from being forced into a military bloc. The situation changed in the post-Cold War era of the 1990s, when the US, determined to enforce sanctions through the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), successfully pressured Russia to halt the transfer of cryogenic engine technology to India.
The resulting sanctions on ISRO and several Indian entities were a brusque reminder that space was as much about realpolitik as research. The US feared that India’s emerging launch capabilities could help its missile programmes. Many Indian scientists felt this was driven more by the emergence of ISRO as a commercial challenger to NASA, since cryogenic engines are not optimal for missile launches.
For India, this marked a turning point: it reinforced the need for technological self-reliance, strengthened political resolve, and led to the development of indigenous cryogenic technologies. Notably, during Gulf War 1 (1990-1991), dubbed as “the first space war”, the US extensively harnessed satellite-enabled communications, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting but denied GPS data to India during the Kargil War (1999). This was the impetus for the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) that became operational in 2018.
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Changing space politics
As the bilateral relations between the US and India thawed in the 2000s, outer space emerged as an arena of cooperation, while the India-US Civil Nuclear Deal (2008) set the stage for removing Cold War-era restrictions on India. The launch of the world’s most expensive satellite NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) in 2025 represent the most advanced Earth-observation mission ever undertaken.
NISAR will track disasters and changes in Earth’s surface to transform global understanding and management of ecosystems, resources, climate change and livelihoods. A partnership once marred by denial and sanctions is now marked by mutual interest and reciprocal scientific collaboration. If this demonstrates that the US, as the world’s leading power, sees India as a collaborator rather than a proliferator, then it’s also a testament of India’s rise as a major player. This has been underpinned by ISRO’s success with high-profile missions like the Chandrayaan series (including the Moon landing), Mars Orbiter Mission and the Aditya-L1.
Likewise, the successful space docking in early 2025 puts India in an elite quartet of global powers that includes the US, Russia and China with similar capabilities. Additionally, with the liberalisation of the space sector since 2020, a growing number of private space firms and start-ups are driving innovation, expanding the industrial base, and positioning India strongly in international space markets.
Space underpins modern society by enabling satellite-enabled communication, navigation, remote sensing, and imaging across sectors, from connectivity and weather forecasting to agriculture and disaster response. As space grows more congested, commercial and contested, India’s space ambitions should align with its ability to adapt to an evolving strategic environment. With the unpredictability generated by domestic political churnings in the US, and great power competition among the US, Russia and China, India will have to navigate new challenges and opportunities in outer space with like-minded partners.
Significantly, the Indian space programme has emerged as a key avenue for facilitating diplomatic, economic, and technical cooperation with a wide range of countries, and especially across crucial geographies in Asia, Africa and the Indo-Pacific. If Aryabhata in 1975 was about building capability, and NISAR in 2025 underscores India’s prowess as a global player, then the next 50 years must be about shaping global norms, leading innovation and leveraging outer space for key national interests.
Dr. Shounak Set, FHEA, is a Research Fellow with the South Asia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), specialising in technology, strategy and geopolitics with a focus on South Asia and the Indo-Pacific. He tweets @shounakset.Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)