Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi addressed the first International Space Summit, held in Paris, by video conference on 10 September 2026. The summit was convened by French President Emmanuel Macron. The Prime Minister's argument had a governance core: "orbits are becoming more crowded, technologies more powerful, and actors more numerous", and therefore "our choices must be clear: cooperation over confrontation, sustainability over short-term gain, and inclusion over exclusion."
He set out India's position as support for "a safe, secure, peaceful and sustainable space domain, anchored in international law, dialogue and multilateral cooperation", framed it through Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam — one Earth, one family, one future — and added a data principle: "Scientific data must serve the common good, with openness and integrity."
Why a summit about space at all
The subject of the summit is a real and worsening physical problem. Every satellite launched, every rocket upper stage abandoned and every anti-satellite test leaves objects in orbit that do not fall back quickly. In low Earth orbit an object travels at roughly 7.8 km per second; at those speeds a fragment the size of a bolt carries the energy of a hand grenade. As the population of objects rises, so does the collision rate, and each collision creates more fragments — the runaway feedback known as Kessler syndrome, after the NASA scientist who described it in 1978.
The number of active satellites has multiplied in the last decade because of mega-constellations of thousands of small satellites in low orbit, and because launch costs have fallen. That is the "more actors, more crowded" the Prime Minister described. The governance tools are thin:
- The Outer Space Treaty, in force 10 October 1967, is the foundation. It declares space the province of all mankind, bars national appropriation of celestial bodies, prohibits weapons of mass destruction in orbit and on celestial bodies, requires that the Moon be used for peaceful purposes, and makes states internationally responsible for national activities including those of their private companies.
- Four further treaties follow it: the Rescue Agreement (1968), the Liability Convention (1972), the Registration Convention (1975) and the little-ratified Moon Agreement (1979).
- UNOOSA, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs at Vienna, services COPUOS, the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, created in 1959.
- Debris rules are voluntary: the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) guidelines of 2002 became the UN Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines endorsed by the General Assembly in 2008.
None of that binds a satellite operator to move out of another's way. That gap is what a summit of this kind exists to discuss, and India's phrase for its own effort is Project NETRA, ISRO's space-situational-awareness programme, with the IS4OM centre at Bengaluru tracking objects that threaten Indian assets.
The record the Prime Minister cited
| Achievement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Chandrayaan-3 | Landed 23 August 2023, the first mission to land near the lunar south pole; India became the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon; the site is Statio Shiv Shakti, and 23 August is now National Space Day |
| Aditya-L1 | Launched 2 September 2023; inserted into a halo orbit around Sun-Earth L1 on 6 January 2024, about 1.5 million km from Earth; India's first dedicated solar observatory |
| Indian astronaut on the ISS | Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla flew as pilot on Axiom Mission 4 in June–July 2025, spending about 18 days aboard the station |
| Commercial launch | More than 430 payloads from 34 countries launched on Indian rockets |
A Lagrange point is a position where the gravitational pull of two large bodies and the orbital motion of a small one balance, so a spacecraft can hold station cheaply. L1, between the Sun and Earth, gives a continuous, uninterrupted view of the Sun — which is why solar observatories go there. The physics of orbits and gravitation is on the gravitation page.
The roadmap
The Prime Minister restated two national targets: an indigenous space station, the Bharatiya Antariksh Station, by 2035, and an Indian astronaut on the Moon by 2040. Both sit on the Gaganyaan human-spaceflight programme, whose first crewed flight is the prerequisite. He also noted that India's private space sector is growing fast alongside ISRO — "the energy of enterprise is joining the excellence of ISRO" — the consequence of the 2020 reforms that created IN-SPACe as the regulator and promoter for private players, with NewSpace India Limited as ISRO's commercial arm and Antrix as the older marketing entity.
The French thread
The Prime Minister's remark that France has been a partner "since the inception of the Indian space programme at Thumba in the 1960s" is historically exact and worth knowing. The Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station near Thiruvananthapuram was chosen because it lies almost on the magnetic equator; the first sounding rocket flew from it on 21 November 1963, and among the early rockets launched there were French Centaure vehicles. Thumba was dedicated to the United Nations in 1968 as an international facility.
That cooperation has continued through joint Earth-observation satellites — Megha-Tropiques (2011) for the tropical water cycle and SARAL (2013) for ocean altimetry, both with the French space agency CNES — and the forthcoming TRISHNA thermal-infrared mission for land-surface temperature and water use. India's launch relationship with Europe runs the other way too: Ariane rockets from Kourou in French Guiana carried many Indian communication satellites before India's own heavy launchers matured. For the wider technology and defence GK this belongs to, the NDA study material hub is the base.
🔑 Revision block
The event. First International Space Summit, Paris, 10 September 2026; convened by President Emmanuel Macron; PM Modi addressed it by video conference. The message. Crowded orbits, more powerful technologies, more actors; cooperation over confrontation, sustainability over short-term gain, inclusion over exclusion; safe, secure, peaceful, sustainable space anchored in international law; scientific data for the common good; Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. Law. Outer Space Treaty in force 10 October 1967 — province of all mankind, no national appropriation, no WMD in orbit, peaceful use, state responsibility for private actors; Rescue Agreement 1968, Liability Convention 1972, Registration Convention 1975, Moon Agreement 1979; COPUOS 1959, UNOOSA at Vienna; debris guidelines voluntary — IADC 2002, UN 2008. Debris. Objects in low Earth orbit travel at ~7.8 km/s; Kessler syndrome is the collision-cascade risk; India's answer is Project NETRA with IS4OM, Bengaluru. Record. Chandrayaan-3 landed 23 August 2023 near the lunar south pole, site Statio Shiv Shakti, National Space Day 23 August; Aditya-L1 launched 2 September 2023, halo orbit at Sun-Earth L1 on 6 January 2024, 1.5 million km; Shubhanshu Shukla on Axiom-4 to the ISS, June-July 2025, ~18 days; 430-plus payloads from 34 countries launched. Roadmap. Bharatiya Antariksh Station by 2035; Indian on the Moon by 2040; Gaganyaan underpins both; 2020 reforms created IN-SPACe, with NSIL as ISRO's commercial arm. France. Thumba (TERLS) on the magnetic equator, first sounding rocket 21 November 1963, French Centaure rockets among the early launches; joint missions Megha-Tropiques (2011), SARAL (2013), TRISHNA ahead; partner agency CNES.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. The first International Space Summit, addressed by the Indian Prime Minister in September 2026, was held at: (a) Vienna (b) Paris (c) Geneva (d) Washington DC → (b).
Q2. Aditya-L1 is placed in a halo orbit around: (a) the Moon (b) Mars (c) the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L1 (d) a geostationary slot → (c) — about 1.5 million km from Earth.
Q3. Chandrayaan-3 landed on: (a) 14 July 2023 (b) 23 August 2023 (c) 2 September 2023 (d) 6 January 2024 → (b) — now National Space Day.
Q4. The Outer Space Treaty came into force in: (a) 1959 (b) 1963 (c) 1967 (d) 1979 → (c).
Q5. Which of the following does the Outer Space Treaty NOT prohibit? (a) National appropriation of the Moon (b) Weapons of mass destruction in orbit (c) Military bases on celestial bodies (d) Commercial satellite launches → (d).
Q6. The runaway collision-cascade risk in Earth orbit is known as: (a) the Coriolis effect (b) Kessler syndrome (c) the Oberth effect (d) the Lagrange problem → (b).
Q7. India's space-situational-awareness programme is called: (a) NAVIC (b) NETRA (c) BHUVAN (d) SAMEER → (b).
Q8. The Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station was chosen for its proximity to the: (a) Tropic of Cancer (b) magnetic equator (c) prime meridian (d) coastline of the Bay of Bengal → (b) — first launch 21 November 1963.
Q9. India's regulator and promoter for private space activity, created by the 2020 reforms, is: (a) NSIL (b) Antrix (c) IN-SPACe (d) NRSC → (c).
Q10. The Indian who flew to the International Space Station on Axiom Mission 4 in 2025 is: (a) Rakesh Sharma (b) Shubhanshu Shukla (c) Prashanth Nair (d) Ajit Krishnan → (b).
Q11. India's targets are a space station by ___ and an astronaut on the Moon by ___: (a) 2030 and 2035 (b) 2035 and 2040 (c) 2040 and 2047 (d) 2035 and 2047 → (b).
Q12. Consider the following: 1. Megha-Tropiques and SARAL were joint India-France satellite missions. 2. COPUOS functions under the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs at Vienna. (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both (d) Neither → (c).
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Space questions come in four shapes. The mission item — what Aditya-L1 studies and where it sits, or Chandrayaan-3's landing date and region, with a lunar orbit offered as the L1 distractor. The treaty item — the Outer Space Treaty's year and what it forbids. The body item — ISRO, IN-SPACe, NSIL, Antrix, UNOOSA and COPUOS matched to functions. The partnership item — which country partnered a named satellite, with France, the United States and Japan shuffled.
The fresh 2026 hook is the first International Space Summit and its themes of orbital crowding and debris, likeliest as "India recently participated in which summit" or a statement pair on Aditya-L1's location. We describe the recurring pattern, not any exact past question.
Preparing for NDA? Space GK repeats every cycle and rewards precision about where a spacecraft actually is. Build the base with our NDA study material hub, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and train with our ex-officer faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Col D.N. Sharma — Defence & strategic affairs faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk. The Cavalier, founded by ex-Army officers, has trained NDA/CDS/SSB aspirants since 2001 (Facebook · YouTube).
Source: PIB / Prime Minister's Office, 10 September 2026. Mission dates, treaty provisions and India-France cooperation cross-verified with ISRO, UNOOSA and independent sources.