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U.S.-India Space Cooperation Reaches New Heights, Despite Lingering Proliferation Concerns

By Jennifer Kline

An analysis for the WMD Insights.
© WMD Insights. All rights reserved.

While the March 2, 2006, U.S.-India nuclear agreement has stirred controversy that has slowed its implementation, another element of the two states' burgeoning relationship -- closer cooperation on the civilian uses of outer space -- is making important progress. [1]

Joint collaboration on space initiatives received its most recent boost on May 9, 2006, with the signing of two memoranda of understanding (MOU) finalizing an agreement to carry two U.S. payloads aboard India's lunar orbiter, the Chandrayaan-I. The initiative is the first phase in a partnership that may lead to cooperation on the manufacture and launch of satellites and new collaborations in the exploration of space. [2] The groundbreaking Chandrayaan-I agreement, coupled with successful cultivation of U.S.-India civilian space cooperation over the past several years, suggest an important turning point may have been reached in the long and sometimes difficult history of space relations between Washington and New Delhi.

Nonetheless, continued proliferation concerns are expected to limit cooperation in certain areas, in particular regarding launch capabilities and the insertion of satellites into orbit.

Background

The United States and India began cooperation on space-related issues in the 1960s, when the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) agreed to assist India with the assembly and launch of sounding rockets, the training of Indian personnel, and the establishment of a launch center at Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram, that was used to launch India's first U.S.-supplied Nike-Apache sounding rocket on November 21, 1963. [3] India and the United States continued to expand cooperation by sharing telecommunication and weather forecasting satellite data throughout the 1970s and 1980s. [4] Gradually, however, as India began to expand its space launch activities and build up its ballistic missile program, Washington worried that India was exploiting co-operation on peaceful space research projects to advance its missile capabilities. [5]

The best known episode involved Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, current president of India and "father" of the Indian space and missile programs, who trained for four months in the United States in 1963 and 1964. During that time he visited NASA's Langley Research Center, where the United States Scout rocket was developed, and the Wallops Island Flight Center, where the Scout was flown. Kalam then proceeded to build India's first big rocket and domestic satellite launch vehicle, the SLV-3, which is believed to be a virtual replica of the Scout rocket based on the blueprints Kalam saw while in the U.S. and design information that NASA subsequently shared at India's request. The first stage of the SLV-3, first launched in 1979, was then used as the first stage of the Agni missile, India's largest nuclear-capable missile, for which Kalam was the chief designer. [6] The Agni was test launched in 1989.

Concerned about the growing global proliferation of ballistic and other missiles, the United States led the effort to establish the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in 1987 to coordinate national export licensing measures on ballistic and cruise missiles and related technology, including technology for space launch vehicles that might contribute to the development of military systems. [7] The regime targeted emerging missile programs, including those of India, and led to additional restrictions on U.S. transfers to India's space launch vehicle programs.

In 1992, U.S.-India space relations seriously deteriorated when Washington objected to an agreement between the Russia space agency, Glavkosmos, and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for the sale to India of cryogenic rocket engines and the technology to produce them. The United States believed such exports violated the rules of the MTCR, which banned the sale of production technology for missiles able to carry a payload of 500 kilograms to a distance of 300 kilometers or more. Both Russia and the United States were members of the regime. Concerned that cryogenic units employed on space launch vehicles might contribute to India's development of the top stage of a missile above the MTCR threshold, Washington pressed Moscow to back out of the agreement. [8] Eventually Russia agreed to supply six cryogenic engines to India, but not the technology for their manufacture. [9]

The next rupture in U.S.-India space cooperation occurred in May 1998, when the Indian Pokhran-II nuclear tests led the Clinton Administration to impose a wide range of sanctions on New Delhi, including intensified controls on all dual-use exports to entities associated with the Indian nuclear, missile, and satellite launch-vehicle programs. [10] "Washington began to actively prevent access to any technology because of worries that it could be misused for military purposes," in the words of one Indian journalist. [11] Sanctions, in the form of highly restrictive export licensing requirements, were placed on ISRO and a number of other Indian entities involved in the Indian space and missile programs.

New Bush Initiative

Although the Clinton Administration gradually eased the most onerous sanctions imposed after the 1998 Indian nuclear tests, the Bush Administration actively sought to rebuild ties with the Indian civilian space community, and since January 2004 has made substantial efforts to reestablish U.S.-India space cooperation. The Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) initiative, established in January 2004, involved a package of measures. On the one hand, the initiative implemented measures to ensure Indian compliance with U.S. export controls, including post-export restrictions. At the same time, the United States modified U.S. export licensing policies to facilitate greater commercial space cooperation with India. [12] Under an updated End-Use Verification Agreement, India agreed to allow U.S. Department of Commerce officials to conduct end-use "spot checks" at space entities importing U.S. dual-use items. [13] India also agreed to the placement of an export-control attach in the U.S. embassy in New Delhi to further monitor end-use verification of U.S. exports to India. [14] In addition, the United States and India are discussing steps to help ensure that indigenous, Indian-made dual-use products and expertise are not transferred to potential proliferators. [15]

These changes led the United States to remove ISRO headquarters from the U.S. Department of Commerce Entity List, identifying foreign organizations of particular proliferation concern. The list was designed to "inform the public of entities whose activities imposed a risk of diverting exported and re-exported items into programs related to weapons of mass destruction." [16] Three additional ISRO subsidiary entities were removed from the Entity List in July 2005, and ISRO is currently petitioning to have the crucial Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, the Liquid Propulsion Systems Center, and the Satish Dhawan Space Center removed from the list in order to facilitate their receipt of additional high-tech American exports. [17]

The joint statement signed by George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 18, 2005, maintained the momentum for continued expansion of commercial space cooperation between the United States and India, building on the NSSP initiative. The joint statement called specifically for enhancing bilateral cooperation in space exploration and the launching and navigation of satellites to achieve U.S.-India objectives. [18] Nonetheless, long-standing U.S. nonproliferation policies, combined with uneasiness in Washington concerning India's proliferation history, have limited the extent of high-tech space-related exports to India, causing frustration in the Indian space community. Even the joint statement signed by President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on March 2, 2006, which further committed both countries to civil space cooperation, left many scientists at ISRO "impassive rather than celebratory over the 'headway' portrayed in [the] statement." [19] As one ISRO official described overall U.S.-India space relations at the time, "We are happy that there is some progress, but not with the pace of it." [20]

Moon Mission Breakthrough

In an environment colored by the controversy surrounding the U.S.-India nuclear agreement and by difficult continuing negotiations over a bilateral agreement to permit India to launch third-country satellites containing U.S. components or technology, the U.S.-India initiative on lunar exploration stands out as a potential breakthrough in high-technology collaboration between the two countries. [21] In November 2005, the U.S. Department of State signed two Technical Assistance Agreements (TAAs) - the relevant U.S. export licensing documents authorizing two U.S. scientific instruments to be carried as payloads on the Indian Chandrayaan-I Lunar Mission. The two U.S. instruments are the M3 (Moon Mineralogy Mapper) and the MiniSAR (Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar). The scope of the experiments conducted and the sharing of responsibilities and data collected on this mission were determined in the MOUs signed on May 9, 2006. [22]

Michael Griffin, Administrator of NASA, has strongly endorsed the NASA-ISRO rapprochement symbolized by the Chandrayaan-I agreement. Griffin reportedly stated at a press conference following the May 9 MOU signing ceremony that "he was sorry about the U.S. sanctions on some ISRO units and that he would use his good offices to lift the sanctions." [23] Despite Griffin's encouraging words, both Indian and American parties remain "cautious about the political implications of this warmth vis-à-vis the sanctions," illustrating the limitations of NASA's ability to expedite fundamental changes in U.S. space-cooperation policy. [24] Indeed, even Griffin acknowledged that differences between the United States and India in this sphere have "more to do with concerns over proliferation than anything else," reflecting residual concerns in Washington about Indian misuse of space technology for military purposes that NASA will find hard to dispel. [25]

Potential Proliferation Issues

While there is little concern that the inclusion of the M3 and Mini-SAR on the Chandrayaan-I will result in a technology transfer of any great significance, there remain lingering apprehensions among some Washington-based missile experts about the potential transfer of "tacit knowledge" skills in the form of payload integration assistance for the lunar mission that might later be exploited for military functions. The principal concern is that if U.S. system integration specialists work with Indian engineers to demonstrate the best method for integrating payloads into space vehicles, then critical tacit knowledge skills that can only be learned by "doing" will transfer into the hands of the Indian engineers. [26]

This know-how is also relevant to certain military activities, such as integrating multiple nuclear warhead payloads into inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In the late 1990s, a major controversy erupted when two U.S. firms, Loral and Hughes Aircraft, were found to have transferred tacit knowledge of this kind to China during discussions aimed at overcoming technical obstacles to the successful launch of their satellites on Chinese space launch vehicles. [27] Similarly, any U.S. assistance in preparing the Indian lunar mission with regard to automated deployment structures in space could conceivably help India develop penetration aids for its ballistic missiles, which might reduce the effectiveness of U.S. missile defense systems. [28]

Indeed, the possibility that transferred U.S. technology might be utilized for improving Indian ICBMs or for expanding Indian capacity to construct ICBMs remains a major source of controversy in the U.S.-India space cooperation deal. [29] As with the SLV-3 and the Agni, India's missile program continues to borrow heavily from the country's civilian space program. It has been reported, for example, that the solid fuel engines of India's Polar Space Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will serve as the first two stages of India's Surya intercontinental ballistic missile, with a cryogenic rocket engine, derived from that provided by Russia in the early 1990s for the Indian space program, serving as the third stage. [30] Some believe that the PSLV could be converted to an ICBM in as little as 12 to 24 months. [31] In this environment, if the United States promotes the launch of satellites from any of India's space launch vehicles, there is a danger that rocket and satellite integration and satellite dispensing know-how with potential military utility will be transferred to India's ICBM program.

The Chandrayaan project notwithstanding, concerns of this kind continue to constrain U.S. space-related exports to India, making some Indian analysts skeptical that the new U.S.-India space cooperation agreement will result in significant high-technology transfers from the United States. One editorial writer noted, for example, that:

An effort by Boeing and ISRO to jointly build satellites for the international market collapsed, largely on account of onerous U.S. licensing procedures...Another area of friction is commercial satellite launches, which Washington is able to control because many satellites contain critical U.S.-made components. ISRO has reportedly lost a commercial launch contract as a result of uncertainty over securing American clearances. [32]

Fears have also been voiced that expanded cooperation will lead to U.S. interference in Indian scientific programs. [33]

Conclusion

With these issues in the background, the United States and India continue difficult negotiations on a satellite launch agreement that will harmonize proliferation concerns, commercial requirements, and the desire of both countries to expand civilian space cooperation. Meanwhile, the Chandrayaan-I mission continues to advance with little debate - a sea of tranquility in an ocean still roiled by significant controversies.