Deep Space Agenda

Any satellite (or a probe) which travels to a distance of 100,000 km or more from the Earth’s surface is known to have entered the region which is normally depicted as deep space.1 Earth’s Moon is approximately at the distance of 400,000 km; hence, Moon missions are generally termed as deep space missions. Various other activities to reach planets like Mars, Venous or far-distance asteroid would be viewed also as part of deep space schema of the states. This chapter discusses the Asia’s agenda into deep space region. This chapter restricts itself to discuss Moon and Mars missions.

One of the primary activities the global space community pursued in the year 2006 was to answer the questions, ‘Why should we return to the Moon?’ and ‘What do we hope to accomplish through lunar exploration?’ NASA was instrumental in posing these questions and was looking for answers from the global space community. Almost 200 lunar exploration objectives resulted from this quest. These objectives could be fitted under six major lunar exploration themes.

These themes are (1) human civilisation: to extend human presence to the Moon to enable eventual settlement; (2) scientific knowledge; (3) exploration preparation: test technologies, systems, flight operations and exploration techniques; (4) global partnerships; (5) economic expansion; and (6) public engagement.[233] [234] [235]

The extent of these categories identified (is based on only one dataset) indicates that the expectations from the Moon are far too many and demand substantial tech­nological and economic investments on part of the state. It could take few decades to accomplish a substantial number of the things the global space community

envisages. It may not be possible for only one state to achieve this on its own strength, and success could be achieved in lesser time if states cooperate with each other and undertake joint missions. The current trend indicates that few states have already launched the first phase of their Moon programmes and have well – articulated roadmaps for the future. Some of these programmes have some element of international cooperation, but no policy exists for global cooperative efforts to ‘conquer’ the Moon. This signifies that the states are basically interested in finishing their groundwork for advanced space voyages on their own. States understand that the enormity of the overall task (like establishing human colonies over Moon and Mars) demands international cooperation but at the same time do probably weigh the options for such arrangement based on their own understanding about the ‘strategic relevance’ of the Moon.

Apart from the USA, Russia and Europe, few Asian states are very keen to invest towards mapping and mining the Moon and also have plans for Mars missions. These states are Japan, China and India. These three states have already finished their first Moon missions and have a blueprint ready for the future. It is argued over here that their overall deep space mission aspirations have strategic ambitions attached to it.