For the last five decades artificial satellites are being used to perform diverse roles in astronomy, atmospheric studies and education. They have been found useful for reconnaissance, meteorology, navigation, communication and search & rescue.
Space technologies are offering benefits to space faring nations and space derived products are available at a price. Space is also been seen as the ultimate high ground and gives armies and space faring nations tremendous advantage on the battlefield. After the Chinese ASAT test in January 2007, the global community has now become more concerned about the likely weaponisation of space.
With these aspects as a backdrop, this book Space Security and Global Cooperation is a collection of papers that were presented at the Space Security Conference organised by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi and the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies, London. The book covers a wide spectrum of issues related to the field of space security, emerging technologies, regional perspectives, space tourism, space law and global cooperation. It is an attempt to contextualise the debates in a more cogent form.