DRDO scientists term 'Mission Shakti' as a demonstration of India's space power, political will

Space scientists on Wednesday joined hands in hailing the success of 'Mission Shakti' and termed the historic feat as the demonstration of India's space power and political will.

"We have mastered anti-satellite capability. We have today shown that we can hit satellites at long ranges with a few centimetres accuracy," DRDO chairman G Satheesh Reddy told ANI.

"Mission Shakti not only demonstrates the country's space power but also speaks volume about our political will," said former Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist Ravi Kumar Gupta.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday announced that anti-satellite (A-SAT) weapon has successfully destroyed a decommissioned Indian satellite on a low earth orbit (LEO), joining a group of three countries--US, Russia and China.

"This is a great moment for us. India has become one of the four nations which have the capability of destroying an active satellite in the space and that too in a matter of minutes," Gupta told ANI.

Former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief G Madhavan Nair said: "I would like to congratulate Prime Minister Modi for having a political will to take such a decision and implement it within a short time."

"When Chinese did this kind of experiment, there was a lot of uproar from the international community as they polluted the entire space but here we have taken a wise decision to have a satellite made by ISRO and demonstrated that we can kill live satellite using our own anti-satellite system," he said.

Former DRDO chief and NITI Aayog member Dr VK Saraswa said: "If today nations across the world want to militarise the space, India has the technological capability to match them."

"We use space only for the peaceful purpose and that is what Prime Minister Modi has been saying. This launch is not against any nation. It is basically to create technological capability in India," he said.

Former ISRO Scientist Nambin Narayanan said: "It is a complex technology, which is difficult to achieve. We have the ability to destroy an enemy satellite. If you are powerful, then you have a status in the world whether you like it or not.