‘A-SAT will act as a deterrence for India,’ says DRDO chief Satheesh Reddy on success of 'Mission Shakti'

The execution of Mission Shakti that proved India's capability to shoot down satellites with Anti Satellite (ASAT) missiles will act as a good deterrence, said G Satheesh Reddy, DRDO Chairman on Wednesday. While speaking to PTI, he added that India has joined the elite club of the United States, China and Russia after using this technology. 

Highlighting the fact that the technology used in Mission Shakti was completely indigenous, Reddy gave an approximation of just how accurate India's capability now is, using the unit centimetres - especially significant as the missile had travelled 300km in just 3 minutes. 

“We have matured to develop technology which could achieve accuracy in terms of centimetres. Completing an action with such accuracy shows DRDO’s capability,” he said. 

Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Modi had also applauded the precision of the weapon that completed the mission in three minutes in his tweet: 

It was Prime Minister Modi who informed the nation about the Anti-Satellite test that saw India shoot down a satellite occupying a Low-Earth Orbit. He said that India has entered the space power league with this accomplishment. Anti-satellite space weapons are those that allow a country to attack enemy satellites, thereby causing disruption to a range of systems for strategic purposes.  

While Reddy did not say anything on erstwhile UPA governments' stand on these technologies – amid Opposition claims that the capability was available since 2012 -  former DRDO chief VK Saraswat, however, said that if Congress government would have responded to requests for resources and requisite permissions, India would have been an anti-satellite missile power years ago. 

Former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair seconded him by saying that India had the technology but no political will to demonstrate it. Briefing the media after PM Modi's address, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley added that Indian scientists had the capability to launch anti-satellite test long ago but the government of that time did not allow. Both Jaitley and reddy termed this day as historic.