Skyborne sentinels: How GSAT-7B gives the Indian Army its own eye in orbit

Picture a young jawan posted on a wind-lashed ridge in Ladakh, with nothing but rock and ice between him and the nearest town. For him, the difference between isolation and safety is a single thing: a working link to his commanders. By the middle of 2028, that link is expected to come from a satellite the Indian Army can finally call its own.

Today, oddly enough, the Army has no such satellite. The Air Force and the Navy each have one, but the Army has been sharing the Air Force's satellite, GSAT-7A. Think of it as several families drawing water from one neighbour's tap. It works, but there is only so much to go around, and the owner's needs come first. For a force with lakhs of personnel scattered across deserts, jungles and the highest mountains on Earth, that arrangement has long felt inadequate.

Senior officials said on Monday, 19 October, that ISRO is expected to launch the Army’s first dedicated communication satellite around mid-2028. Named GSAT-7B, it was originally due in November 2027, but technical difficulties have pushed the launch back by about six months. The groundwork was laid in March 2023, when the Ministry of Defence signed a ₹3,000-crore contract with NewSpace India Limited, better known as NSIL, the commercial company through which ISRO builds satellites for paying customers. That contract answered a need the Army had been raising for years.

What will this satellite actually do? At five tonnes, or 5,000 kilograms, it will be the heaviest communication satellite India has ever built. It will sit in what engineers call a geostationary orbit, which simply means it travels around the Earth at exactly the speed the planet turns, so from the ground it seems to hang motionless over the same spot, like a lamp post fixed high above the subcontinent. From that height, a radio message can be bounced off the satellite from one valley to another, leaping over the mountains that ordinarily block signals. It will connect soldiers, units, weapon systems, aircraft and other essential equipment, letting commanders issue orders, coordinate troops and manage both routine duties and battlefield operations around the clock, securely and without interruption, even at the remotest border post.

The real test, officials say, comes in war. One of the first things an enemy does is cut the ground communication lines, by striking towers and cutting cables. A satellite overhead keeps the conversation going when everything below has gone silent.

But there is a catch, and it has a name: China. Beijing is rapidly expanding its space capabilities and already has jammers, which are devices that flood a satellite's frequency with electronic noise, much like shouting over someone to drown out their voice. It is also known to be developing weapons meant to disable or destroy satellites altogether. The lesson for India is sobering. Owning a satellite is only half the task; the other half is keeping it safe.

GSAT-7B is one piece of a larger plan. The Navy received its new satellite, GSAT-7R, last November, when ISRO launched it to replace the ageing Rukmini. Built entirely in India, it lets warships, submarines, aircraft and shore-based control centres talk securely across the open sea. Just last week, the Ministry of Defence signed a second contract with NSIL, worth ₹2,563 crore, for a fresh Air Force satellite called GSAT-7C, also fully Indian-made, so that aircraft and ground systems can stay in constant touch. In short, each service will soon have its own voice in space.

Talking is one thing; watching is another. Alongside these communication satellites, India is building a separate fleet of satellites whose job is to observe the ground, in effect unblinking watchmen above the planet. In October 2024, the Cabinet Committee on Security, the Prime Minister's top body for security decisions, approved the third phase of the Space Based Surveillance programme. The ₹26,968-crore plan will put 52 military satellites into orbit over the next three years. It is run by the Defence Space Agency, which sits under the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, the office that helps the three services work as one. ISRO will build and launch 21 of these satellites, and private Indian companies will supply the remaining 31.

All of this rests on a shared rulebook. Last September, at the Combined Commanders' Conference in Kolkata, the armed forces released the Joint Military Space Doctrine, which lays out how the Army, Navy and Air Force should use space together. A National Military Space Policy is now being drafted to protect India's satellites and prepare for threats beyond the atmosphere.

For the soldier on that frozen ridge, every policy and programme comes down to one assurance: when he calls, someone will hear.