The dramatic arrest in October this year of 52 year old Stewart David Nozette, a top ranking space scientist with the USA’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA), by the sleuths of the FBI(Federal Bureau of Investigation) on charges of spying on behalf of an Israel based aerospace and defence outfit  was an event that did not go unnoticed in India. This high profile American scientist  who held  security clearance as high as “top secret” was associated with India’s maiden lunar probe Chandrayaan-1, which before its untimely demise in late August this year, had  set a  landmark research  record by providing  the strongest ever clues for the presence of water on the lunar surface.

Nozette,  was the co-investigator of the Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar(MiniSAR), one of the two American payloads onboard Chandrayaan-1. MiniSAR designed to look for signs of water in the polar regions of the moon was a NASA payload  built by the Applied  Physics  Laboratory of John Hopkins University and the Naval Warfare Centre, USA. However, sources in the Indian Space Research Organisation( ISRO) have  made it clear that the arrest of Nozette was an internal NASA matter and ISRO security has not been compromised  in any way by this episode. Incidentally, as part of his involvement in Chandrayaan-1 mission, Nozette had visited the  Bangalore based Satellite Centre, the lead agency for Chandrayaan-1 mission, twice and had interacted with Indian space scientists. On its part, ISRO has driven home the point that Nozette was not taken around any” critical installations and facilities.”  Nozette was apprehended in a sting action in which an FBI agent posed as an Israeli  intelligence officer. According to the US Department of Justice, Nozette passed on information “classified as both Top Secret and Secret that concerned the US satellites, early warning systems, means of defence or retaliation against large scale attack, communications intelligence information and major elements of defence strategy”.

Holder of a doctorate in Planetary Sciences  from MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology),Nozette had wide ranging exposure by way of his  association with  NASA, the Pentagon, the National Space Council of the White House and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy and had access to “critical, classified data” of strategic importance. In addition, he had also developed the bi-static radar experiment for the Clementine satellite launched in 1994. Clementine, a joint project of the  Ballistic Missile Development Organisation(BMDO) and NASA, was meant to test sensors and spacecraft components under extended exposure to the space  environment and to make scientific observations of the moon and the near earth asteroid  1620 Geographos. More recently he was associated with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, which marked America’s first step  towards  returning back to the moon, almost four decades after the historic Apollo mission.

Nozette had also played a key role in giving a practical shape to the collaboration between India and the USA  in space and  nuclear programmes and high technology trade under  Next Steps In Strategic Partnership(NSSP). With both the USA and India having agreed to expand their cooperation in areas including remote sensing and meteorology, space science research, exploration systems and space operations, ISRO  should exercise a higher level of caution while  interacting with visiting  American scientists.

Nozette’s association with  Chandrayaan-1 may not have resulted in the siphoning off of classified information. However, a detailed inquiry could clear the doubts about the nature and type of data Nozette could have extracted during the course of his interaction with Indian space scientists. In 1994, a senior scientist and a few of his associates  at the Thiruvananthapuram based Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre(VSSC) of ISRO  were under a cloud of suspicion for their alleged role in passing on ”crucial data on the four stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV)” to Pakistan through a Maldivian woman they were in contact with. However the investigation  that followed did not in any way substantiate the allegation. In July 2008, Dongfong  “Greg” Chung, a former engineer with  Rockwell and Boeing,  was convicted for spying on behalf of China. He is known to have stolen secret information on the Space Shuttle and Delta–IV rocket  in possession of American space and aerospace giant Boeing. 

For a long time, the USA  has remained a  favourite playground of Israeli spies and espionage agents. In the FBI’s thinking, Israel and its intelligence agents often feature as a serious threat, second only to China. In 2005, the FBI noted that  Israel maintains an  “active programme to  gather proprietary information  with the  US.” Collection of scientific information in the United  States  is the third highest priority of Israeli intelligence after information on its Arab  neighbours and secret policies and decisions relating to Israel.

 Against this backdrop, both ISRO and DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation), which are actively working with Israel    in many of  the critical areas of space and defence, should  increase their vigilance to prevent India from becoming another happy hunting ground for Israeli intelligence sleuths and espionage agents . India’s track record in preventing the leakage of sensitive information in the course of implementing joint projects  is far from edifying. For instance, an Indo-US cyber security project sparked controversy following the spiriting away of vital data from an Indian intelligence related outfit.