Russia and India Begin Space Cooperation

Russian today signed into law a pact with India to share space technology for peaceful uses.

Daily News Analysis, an Indian paper, reports on the recently concluded pact here:

The framework agreement signed in New Delhi during Putin's visit in December 2004 sets a streamlined system and identifies the mechanism for enhanced cooperation in peaceful exploration of space, including protection of secret information and intellectual property rights and settling disputes.

After signing into law by president Putin, Indo-Russian space cooperation will acquire strategic character and would speed up joint collaboration in completing and operationalising the Global Navigational Satellite System (GLONASS) to end the monopoly of the Pentagon controlled US Global Positioning System (GPS), sources in the Russian Federal Space Agency Roskosmos said.

Russian News & Information Agency offers more details on the future GPS competitor:

Russia and India will use a 24-satellite navigational and global positioning system, Glonass, together, a spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency said.

"A Russian inter-departmental delegation will arrive in India to coordinate the details October 27," Igor Panarin said.

Glonass, a Russian analogue of the United States Global Positioning System, is designed to allow both military and civilian users around the globe to receive signals from satellites to identify their positions in real time. It can also be used in geological prospecting.

They point to the strategically competitive nature of the venture:

Russia is expected to supply seven cryogenic upper stages to India, which originally wanted to buy the Russian technology to build the engines domestically, but U.S. pressure prevented their delivery. India has been working to develop a cryogenic engine for the past 11 years.

Working to cut its dependence on foreign launch vehicles, India has had four operational GSLV flights since 2004 using Russian engines for the upper stage.

The story, along with the many India-US nuclear deal posts, shows the stakes of technology diplomacy. Major powers, be they Japan, China, Russia or America are all scrambling to make deeper inroads with rising powers.

Now how this technological diplomacy may affect proliferation concerns—whether space, nuclear, chemical, or biological—has yet to be determined.

But one thing is for sure-- the international community as a whole is not doing a good job formulating standardized rules for technology sharing. And is do doing bilatteral aggrements-- differing standards, poor verification, potenial secret agreements-- all come to the fore.