ISRO is moving ahead with a major space-surveillance radar at Chandrapur near Guwahati under Project NETRA, strengthening India’s ability to independently detect and track satellites, rocket bodies and orbital debris. The project comes as congestion in Earth orbit is rising rapidly, making accurate space tracking increasingly important not only for ISRO missions, but also for communications, navigation, defence and India’s growing private space sector.

Assam has formally entered a strategically important part of India’s space programme.

On September 21, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma performed the foundation ceremony for ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network’s Advanced Radar Research facility at Chandrapur, near Guwahati. The facility forms part of Project NETRA, or Network for Space Objects Tracking and Analysis, ISRO’s programme to expand India’s indigenous Space Situational Awareness capabilities.

The project itself has been under development for several years. ISRO’s 2025-26 Annual Report confirms that a 67-acre site at Chandrapur was identified for the NETRA radar. The land transfer process began in November 2023, with final registration completed on November 7, 2025.

ISRO’s latest Space Situational Awareness report also confirms that the design and review of an indigenous phased-array space-object tracking radar were completed by a national-level expert committee in 2025, with establishment of the radar in Northeast India subsequently moving ahead.

The significance goes beyond another ISRO ground facility. India is trying to improve its ability to independently understand what is moving around its satellites, how close those objects may come, and when intervention is necessary to avoid a collision.

Why India Needs Better Space Surveillance

Earth orbit is becoming increasingly crowded.

ISRO’s Indian Space Situational Awareness Report for 2025 says 4,651 objects were added to the global space-object population during the year, driven by record launch activity and the rapid deployment of large satellite constellations.

For India, this is already creating an operational burden.

ISRO recorded roughly 1.6 lakh close-approach alerts in 2025. More than 1.5 lakh alerts issued by the US Combined Space Operations Center for Indian Earth-orbiting satellites were analysed by ISRO using its own orbital data.

Those assessments resulted in 18 collision-avoidance manoeuvres for Indian satellites, including 14 involving spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit and four in geosynchronous orbit. ISRO also revised dozens of routine manoeuvre plans after identifying potential post-manoeuvre conjunction risks.

This is why space debris is no longer a distant technical issue.

A satellite travelling at orbital velocity can be seriously damaged by an object far smaller than the satellite itself. The consequences can extend well beyond the spacecraft because India increasingly depends on satellites for communications, weather forecasting, navigation, mapping, disaster management and strategic applications.

ISRO itself has warned that damage to operational satellites can have cascading effects on communications, finance, transportation, power systems and critical defence functions.

Project NETRA is intended to give India a stronger domestic sensor network to manage those risks.

What the Chandrapur Radar Will Actually Do

The Chandrapur facility is intended to track resident space objects, a term covering functioning satellites as well as inactive spacecraft, spent rocket stages and orbital debris.

Radar observations can be used to improve estimates of an object’s orbit and determine whether it may pass dangerously close to an operational satellite.

That information is then useful for collision-risk calculations and, where necessary, manoeuvring a satellite out of danger.

The Assam radar will not operate alone.

ISRO is building NETRA as a network. An optical telescope is being established at Hanle in Ladakh in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. ISRO has also refurbished the Multi-Object Tracking Radar at Sriharikota, which is already being used to observe Indian satellites and rocket bodies during their final orbits before atmospheric re-entry where feasible.

These observations feed into India’s broader Space Situational Awareness system, coordinated through ISRO’s space-safety architecture.

The combination matters because different sensors have different strengths. Optical telescopes are highly useful for observing distant objects but depend on suitable lighting and atmospheric conditions. Radar can actively illuminate targets and therefore provides a different form of tracking capability, particularly for objects in lower orbits.

Together, they allow India to build a more complete picture of the orbital environment.

What About the 10 cm Tracking Claim?

Reports around Project NETRA have frequently described the planned radar as capable of detecting debris around 10 centimetres in size in Low Earth Orbit.

The basic capability is consistent with ISRO’s wider technical work, but the claim needs to be stated carefully.

ISRO’s published research requirements for debris-radar algorithms have targeted detection of approximately 10 cm radar-cross-section objects at distances up to 2,000 kilometres. Separately, ISRO notes that existing space-object catalogues generally track objects larger than around 10 cm in Low Earth Orbit.

However, ISRO’s latest public reports do not yet provide a final commissioned performance specification for the Chandrapur radar itself.

The appropriate conclusion is therefore that the programme is being developed around 10 cm-class debris detection requirements, rather than treating that figure as an operational capability that has already been demonstrated at Chandrapur.

That distinction matters because the facility is only now entering the construction stage.

Reducing Dependence on Foreign Tracking Data

One of the most important aspects of Project NETRA is strategic autonomy.

India currently participates in international space-safety information exchange and receives a very large number of conjunction alerts from foreign tracking systems. In 2025 alone, more than 1.5 lakh alerts generated by the US Combined Space Operations Center for ISRO satellites were analysed by India.

International cooperation will remain necessary even after NETRA expands. No single country can efficiently observe every relevant object in every orbit from its own territory.

But there is a major difference between sharing data with partners and being dependent on external observations for critical decisions concerning Indian satellites.

ISRO has previously noted that publicly available orbital data may not always provide the accuracy required for confident collision-avoidance decisions. It has explicitly linked the expansion of indigenous observational facilities with greater self-reliance in protecting Indian space assets.

The Chandrapur radar therefore should not be understood as eliminating the need for American or international tracking information.

It is about giving India a stronger independent source of observations that can verify, refine and supplement information received from elsewhere.

That becomes increasingly important as space itself acquires greater strategic value.

The National Security Dimension

Project NETRA is primarily presented by ISRO as a space-safety and space-sustainability programme, and the Chandrapur facility should not be confused with a terrestrial missile-warning or air-defence radar.

Its strategic importance nevertheless extends into national security.

Modern military operations depend heavily on satellites for secure communications, navigation, reconnaissance, meteorology and precision operations. India’s NavIC navigation system, military communications satellites and Earth-observation capabilities form part of a wider infrastructure increasingly important to national security.

Knowing what is operating near these spacecraft is therefore strategically valuable.

The same surveillance technologies used to detect accidental collision risks can improve a country’s broader awareness of activity in orbit. As more states develop counter-space capabilities and military dependence on satellites grows, the distinction between civil space safety and space security is becoming less rigid.

India’s requirement is not simply to launch more satellites. It also needs the ability to monitor and protect what it has already placed in orbit.

NETRA is part of that transition.

Why Assam Matters

The location of the new radar is significant for another reason.

Much of India’s major space infrastructure has historically been concentrated in southern and western India, including Bengaluru, Sriharikota, Thiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.

The Chandrapur project brings high-end national space infrastructure into the Northeast.

From an operational perspective, adding geographically separated sensors strengthens a tracking network by providing observations from different locations and viewing geometries. A distributed network is inherently more useful for continuous space-domain awareness than relying on a small number of facilities concentrated in one region.

For Assam, the project also creates a foothold in a highly specialised technological ecosystem.

That should not be exaggerated into an immediate transformation of the regional economy. A strategic radar installation alone will not turn Assam into a large space-industry cluster.

But research facilities can create secondary effects through specialised employment, technical training, procurement, academic collaboration and greater interaction between regional institutions and the national space programme.

The more important development is the geographical diversification of India’s strategic technology infrastructure.

The Next Challenge Is Scale

The Chandrapur radar is an important addition, but it will not by itself give India complete awareness of everything happening in orbit.

The United States operates a vast global Space Surveillance Network with sensors distributed across multiple locations and allied territories. Other major space powers are similarly investing heavily in radar, optical and space-based surveillance systems.

India’s capability is still developing.

NETRA therefore matters most as part of a larger architecture that combines the Assam radar, the Hanle telescope, Sriharikota’s existing radar, orbital analysis facilities and future sensors.

The requirement will only increase.

India plans more Earth-observation, navigation, communication, human-spaceflight and scientific missions. Private Indian companies are also beginning to launch and operate spacecraft of their own.

As the value of India’s orbital infrastructure increases, so does the economic and strategic cost of losing a satellite.

Space surveillance is therefore becoming basic infrastructure for a serious space power.

The Tathya Analysis

The Chandrapur radar represents an important change in the way India approaches space.

For much of its space history, India’s central challenge was gaining reliable access to orbit and developing satellites capable of delivering useful services on Earth.

Those objectives remain important, but they are no longer sufficient.

A country operating valuable satellite constellations must also know what surrounds them, identify collision risks early, monitor re-entering objects and generate sufficiently accurate orbital data to make its own decisions.

India is already performing collision-avoidance manoeuvres and processing more than a lakh foreign-generated conjunction alerts each year. That makes the requirement for stronger domestic surveillance capability practical rather than theoretical.

Project NETRA is therefore best understood as an attempt to build strategic independence in orbital awareness.

That does not mean India should stop exchanging tracking information with the United States or other spacefaring nations. Space safety is inherently international, and global data-sharing will remain valuable.

The strategic objective is different: India should not have to depend entirely on another country to understand threats approaching its own critical space infrastructure.

There is also a wider lesson in the decision to locate this radar in Assam.

India’s future strategic infrastructure is gradually spreading beyond its traditional centres. If followed by research partnerships, skilled employment and related technological investment, the Chandrapur project could give Northeast India a larger role in the country’s space ecosystem.

The radar itself will not make India completely independent in space surveillance.

But it will add another important sensor to the network India needs if it wants to move from simply operating in space to independently understanding and protecting its position in space.

That is the real significance of Chandrapur.

Sources

  • ISRO - Annual Report 2025-26 - Confirms the 67-acre Chandrapur site for the NETRA radar, the land-transfer timeline and the optical telescope project at Hanle.
  • ISRO - Space Situational Assessment - Explains the importance of indigenous observational facilities, limitations of public orbital data and the consequences of satellite damage for communications, navigation, finance and defence.
  • ISRO - Research Areas in Space 2023 - Provides ISRO’s research requirement for debris-radar detection algorithms capable of detecting approximately 10 cm radar-cross-section objects at ranges up to 2,000 km.