India Strengthens Space Surveillance Network With ISRO’s NETRA Radar Facility in Assam

India is expanding its ability to independently detect and track objects in orbit with the establishment of a major radar facility in Assam under the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Network for Space Object Tracking and Analysis, or NETRA, programme.

The facility at Chandrapur in Assam is being developed as part of ISRO’s dedicated Space Situational Awareness infrastructure. Once operational, the radar will strengthen India’s indigenous capability to monitor satellites, spent rocket stages, orbital debris and other objects travelling around Earth.

Major NETRA Radar Site in Assam

ISRO has identified about 67 acres of land at Chandrapur for the NETRA radar installation. According to ISRO’s Annual Report 2025–26, the Memorandum of Transfer for the land was executed in November 2023, while final registration was completed on 7 November 2025.

The establishment of a dedicated radar in the Northeast represents an important expansion of India’s ground-based space surveillance infrastructure. Radar observations can help determine the trajectories of objects orbiting Earth and provide data required to maintain accurate information on the increasingly crowded orbital environment.

Protecting India’s Satellites in Orbit

India today operates a growing fleet of satellites supporting communication, navigation, weather forecasting, Earth observation, scientific research and strategic applications. As the number of satellites and pieces of orbital debris increases globally, the ability to independently monitor the environment around these spacecraft has become increasingly important.

NETRA was created by ISRO specifically to develop this indigenous Space Situational Awareness capability. Its architecture combines dedicated observational facilities with specialised processing and analysis infrastructure.

Data collected by the observational network can be used for orbit determination, correlation and catalogue generation. More importantly, it supports close-approach analysis between Indian spacecraft and other orbiting objects, allowing potentially hazardous encounters to be identified in advance.

Indigenous Capability to Track Space Debris

Orbital debris has emerged as one of the major challenges facing modern space programmes. Defunct satellites, discarded rocket stages and fragments produced by earlier break-ups can remain in orbit for years while travelling at extremely high velocities.

Even relatively small debris can damage an operational spacecraft during a collision. Consequently, accurate tracking and prediction are essential for determining whether a satellite needs to conduct a collision-avoidance manoeuvre.

The Assam radar will contribute observations to India’s wider NETRA system, reducing dependence on externally supplied tracking information and strengthening India’s ability to independently assess risks to its spacecraft.

NETRA Builds a Nationwide Space Surveillance Architecture

The Assam installation forms one component of a broader national system rather than an isolated research facility. ISRO has already established the NETRA Space Situational Awareness Control Centre at the ISTRAC campus in Peenya, Bengaluru.

The Bengaluru centre acts as the hub for India’s Space Situational Awareness activities. It is designed to process observations from tracking facilities, determine the orbits of space objects, maintain catalogues and analyse potentially dangerous approaches involving Indian satellites and launch vehicles.

NETRA also includes an optical telescope facility being established at Hanle in Ladakh in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. Radar and optical observations provide complementary capabilities, helping India build a more comprehensive picture of activity in Earth orbit.

From Satellite Operations to Planetary Defence

ISRO has envisaged NETRA’s responsibilities extending beyond routine satellite protection. Its Space Situational Awareness infrastructure supports studies involving atmospheric re-entry of defunct spacecraft and rocket bodies, space-debris modelling, fragmentation events and the broader orbital environment.

The programme also includes research connected with near-Earth objects and planetary defence. These capabilities become increasingly relevant as India undertakes more sophisticated scientific, commercial and human-spaceflight missions.

Strengthening India’s Strategic Independence in Space

The development of the Chandrapur radar represents another step towards creating an end-to-end indigenous system for understanding what is happening around Indian spacecraft in orbit.

India already possesses its own launch vehicles, satellites, navigation constellation, deep-space communication infrastructure and mission-control capabilities. Building dedicated space-surveillance infrastructure adds another important layer by improving the country’s ability to protect those assets after they reach orbit.

With the NETRA control centre in Bengaluru, the radar facility in Assam and the optical telescope facility being developed at Hanle, India is assembling a distributed national architecture capable of observing, analysing and responding to hazards in an increasingly congested space environment.

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References

Indian Space Research Organisation — Annual Report 2025–26, Technical Facility / Infrastructure: NETRA Radar and Optical Telescope Facility

Indian Space Research Organisation — ISRO Space Situational Awareness Control Centre / Network for Space Object Tracking and Analysis (NETRA)

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