Surya At least one source has reported that a 12,000-km range, 80,000-kg weight ballistic missile, designated Surya, is also under development, but no confirmatory reports of such activity have as yet been discovered. (1) The status of the Surya [Sun] ICBM program is extremely unclear, with some report indicating that the development of this system was initiated in 1994. Conflicting reports regarding the Surya's configuration claim that it will be based on the components of the polar space launch vehicle (PSLV) and the Agni IRBM, and that it will have a range between 8000 and 12,000 kms. (2) Sources and Resources 1. The Nonproliferation Review, Winter 95, p. 160. 2 Chapter 4 From India to North Africa: Sowing A Missile Crop Exploring U.S. Missile Defense Requirements in 2010: What Are the Policy and Technology Challenges? Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis April 1997
WASHINGTON: The United States, which tried its darnedest to stymie India's progress towards achieving cutting edge space capability after giving its space programme an initial boost, Wednesday acknowledged the country's technical virtuosity evident in the successful launch of its top-end GSLV. "It is an indication I guess that India has a great deal of technical prowess," one US official said on background. "Very few countries in the world have such technical capability." Amen, Indian scientists might say, and for good reason. The Indian space programme began in the 1960s in a run down church in Thumba, Kerala, where with the help of American scientists, Indian space cadets knocked together the first rockets in a cowshed that served as a lab and a bishop's lair that served as an office. But after more than two decades of cooperation that even endured India's 1974 nuclear test, Washington began to put the squeeze on India in the early 1990s, suddenly becoming conscious that the country"s defence establishment could ride on the many dual-use civilian space technologies. The crunch came when the Clinton administration began to lean on Russia to stop the sale and technology transfer of cryogenic engines that would have helped India made a generational leap from its PSLV - which helps put modest-sized satellites into a orbit close to earth - to a GSLV. The GSLV can carry satellites weighing more than a ton and place it in a geosynchronous orbit - which means it goes round the Earth at the same rate as the planet turns, so the satellite is always over the same point on the Earth's surface. To do so the satellite needs to reach a very high orbit of 36,000km from the Earth, which will literally and metaphorically, be the high point of this launch. Thanks to US cussedness, the GSLV launch set for 1997 was delayed by four years. Meanwhile, under a renegotiated contract, Russia sold India seven cryogenic engines without the tech transfer, forcing Indian scientists to work on designing their own engines, a mission that is still underway. Still, Wednesday"s GSLV launch sent a murmur of excitement through the American commercial and military space establishments. "This is huge, this is a big deal," Jim Banke, a senior producer for space.com who has covered launches at Cape Canaveral for 15 years said. "This puts India into the big league. Imagine someone introducing a new car into the US market. Imagine how GM and Ford will react. This is going to send shock wave through the aerospace industry." The initial reading is the successful GSLV launch gives India the capability and the confidence to eventually enter the commercial satellite launch market that is estimated to be in the range of $10 to $20 billion annually. Currently only the United States, European Union, Russia, China, and Japan have the capability. The EU space agency Ariane commands nearly half the market, followed by the US, Russia, and China.
The US scientific community also appeared pretty sanguine about the potential military implications of the GSLV success. Although Space.com's Banke said the GSLV clearly signalled that India had achieved a ICBM capability, John Pike, a security expert formerly with the Federation of American Scientists and now Director of Global Security.org, said that capability has already been demonstrated with the PSLV. "The only difference between India's satellite launch vehicles and a ballistic missile is a coat of paint," Pike said. "The only difference between a launch vehicle and a missile is the payload. The payload can be a satellite. Or it can be a nuclear bomb," agreed Banke.
But the US officialdom, which tried to scuttle the transfer of cryogenic engine technology to India to cap such capability, maintained a studied official silence on the development. In fact, against the backdrop of the latest launch, the Indian space and nuclear establishment is having one of its rare contacts with the US scientific dispensation next week. The top minds of the Indian scientific and security apparatus including Dr Raja Ramanna and Prof U R Rao will be here for a dialogue with the United States Centre for International Security and Arms Control.
As sukhoi points out, every state has the right to develop anything it wants for reasons of self-interest.
However, every other state has the "right" to stymie that progress for reasons of self-interest.
In the world of war, why permit another possible competitor on the street if you can prevent it? France/friendly -- "maybe" in the late 1700's.