G Madhavan Nair, former chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday said India's anti-satellite missile test is a significant move in safeguarding space assets.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday announced that India had demonstrated anti-satellite missile capability by shooting down a live satellite, describing it as a rare achievement that puts the country in an exclusive club of space superpowers.

“In the journey of every nation, there are moments that bring utmost pride and have a historic impact on generations to come. One such moment is today," he said in an unprecedented broadcast to the nation on television, radio and social media.

"Today, India is very much dependent on the space assets whether it is a low earth orbit in satellites for the earth observations or the communication satellites for the broadcasting and telecommunication and so on. If anything happens to these space assets, we will be in big danger. So today’s step is a major one towards that," Nair said.

“Regarding the development of the system, the ideas were floating around in 2012 and technologies were developed in bits and pieces. However, it is the political will to proceed with such an action was not coming out of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) II and it was Narendra Modi government which has taken this initiative and given the clearance. Within a very short time, our scientists have really done it and demonstrated that we have a powerful ASAT weapon with us,” he added.