India gives boost to self-reliance in safeguarding space assets

Bengaluru: India has given a boost to self-reliance in safeguarding its space assets with ISRO System for Safe and Sustainable Space Operation and Management (IS4OM).

Union Minister of State for Space Jitendra Singh would inaugurate the IS4OM here on Monday, in the presence of Secretary in the Department of Space and Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation S Somanath. IS40M is a system conceived with a holistic approach towards ensuring safety and sustainability of the space environment while reaping the benefits of sustainable utilisation of outer space for national development, according to ISRO. "It's part of the space situational awareness (SSA) programme to identify space debris and monitor them", an ISRO official said.

"It's to identify the potential collision of our active satellites with other space objects and avoid collisions with proper maneuvering to save our space assets (satellites)," he said.

Sources in the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency said concurrent processing of data from the observational facilities for space objects' orbit determination, correlation and catalogue generation will take place here. In addition, as part of IS4OM, dedicated labs have also been set up for space debris mitigation and remediation, compliance verification of UN/Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) guidelines and various R&D activities.

The R&D activities encompass space object fragmentation and break up modelling, space debris population and micrometeoroid environment modeling, and Near Earth Objects, among others.

"IS4OM will boost our self-reliance ('atmanirbharata') in protecting our own space assets and also meeting UN directions on Debris management", a top ISRO official said.

Sharing its "Space Situational Assessment 2021" in global perspective in March this year, ISRO said growing collision threats of space objects including orbital debris with the operational space assets have become a perennial problem for the safe and sustainable use of outer space.

"These threats restrict the unhindered access to space and prompt all space actors to take appropriate measures to mitigate them", it had said.

Currently, millions of pieces of space debris together with thousands of operational satellites are orbiting the Earth at different altitudes above the Earth. Space debris consists of rocket bodies that are used to launch satellites, defunct satellites, materials released during mission operations, fragments from on-orbit breakups of space objects, and fragments from Anti-Satellite tests.