The Gulf War Just Exposed India's Space Dependency Problem
US shutter controls on geospatial imagery have cut off non-American customers overnight — a stark warning for India's commercially entangled space ecosystem.
It is noteworthy that the apparent ceasefire of the 2026 Persian Gulf War on 8 April, while it may not culminate in "lasting peace," has nonetheless introduced stark realities, prompting numerous regional and non-regional parties affected by this conflict to re-evaluate their global security strategies.
For the Indian Space Commission, India's primary authority for space policy decisions, it is now extremely crucial to expedite two long-standing priorities: enhancing sovereign commercial space capabilities and developing a comprehensive national space strategy.
On Sovereign 'Fully-Indian' Space Pursuits
First, the positives. India's space programme has achieved significant progress since it carried out space reforms, attributable to the government's dedicated efforts to create a sunrise 'space economy'.
Indian new-age space enterprises are competing in both domestic and international markets, attracting investment at home and abroad, providing high-calibre services to clients, and creating new job opportunities for Indian talent to work on innovative projects.
This advancement has been facilitated by the effective implementation of the Space Policy, 2022, supported by measures such as guidance, promotional activities, financing, and steadfast encouragement from senior government officials, including the proactive encouragement of the Prime Minister.
Startups, micro, and small enterprises have benefited from various initiatives offered by the Ministry of Defence through Mission DefSpace and other specialised projects, as well as from initiatives by other ministries, state governments, and, in certain cases, municipal corporations.
Indeed, efforts to create domestic demand to ensure the business continuity of emerging and promising companies have been undertaken, but they have been slow, due only to the vast institutional inertia that any large democratic government suffers from.
The slowness is benign if one assumes demand creation is an adiabatic process, with no external factors influencing it. But in reality, there are external players operating, some with larger financial, business, and strategic influence, and better at talent and intellectual property assimilation than the Indian government has been for the last 79 years.
These external players may benefit from an India-raised ecosystem by offering them quicker, more lucrative business opportunities and investments than the slow-growing demand within India.
The major challenge is having a substantial section of the ecosystem serving overseas military clients; the same militaries which create direct and indirect challenges for India's interests.
As I have said time and again, regardless of the so-called privatisation (the better terminology is commercialisation), the Indian space programme remains a strategic undertaking. Treating it as a non-strategic economic domain would be detrimental to India.
More importantly, in today's world, when any sector can be weaponised, and even fertiliser plants, data centres, and desalination plants are becoming critical infrastructure requiring high-end protection, India cannot afford to disregard the congruence between sovereignty and a strategically attuned space programme as a national priority.
The 2026 Persian Gulf War has created a glut of supplies in the global geospatial imagery market, with market-dominating US commercial geospatial companies implementing shutter controls, releasing no imagery to non-US customers in that region.
Of course, these companies serve the interests of the US government, which happens to be their second-to-none biggest customer and the main regulator of their businesses.
But if the biggest client, the one who also has the ability to regulate the sector the company is in, the one that will always remain the biggest customer and also outlive the life of the same company, tasks all the images the company generates at an amenable price point, no US space company would leave such an opportunity. This shutter control is a stark lesson for all international customers depending on such companies.
Although this experience dents the market reputation of such companies internationally, for them, not losing a perennial business worth hundreds of billions of dollars is better than losing a reputation for a few million dollars. Companies that were apparently considered by gullible international customers to be service providers to the world thus emerged as the US's sovereign assets.
The Persian Gulf War of 2026 has made it necessary for the Space Commission to expedite the articulation of a sovereign space programme more than ever.
A sovereign space programme needs a space ecosystem made of diverse cutting-edge and highly capable entities that:
- do not depend on foreign investments and venture capital;
- do not serve foreign clientele;
- are completely tasked for national priorities during peacetime, during grey-zone warfare, and in full-blown and forever wars;
- have full-scale control over global supply chains, quality controls of the supplies, and the ability to set and meet space technology certifications and standards; and
- have intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, satellite communications, data pipeline, storage, and processing capability that is unhindered, and that data is at the 'beck and call' for any kind of national priority.
Certainly, there are significant tasks confronting the government in its pursuit of establishing a sovereign space ecosystem. The government must adopt a swift, less bureaucratic approach, functioning as a prompt and lucrative provider of business opportunities to wholly Indian companies that are financially, managerially, and supply- and demand-wise indigenous.
The Indian government should establish a definitive demand for sovereign space enterprises to serve national priorities and generate revenue through mutually advantageous relationships.
Space companies must also ensure they are thoroughly prepared to serve national clients, meticulously adhere to governmental certification and standards requirements, and remain vigilant against intrusive and excessive investors and investments that might undermine sovereign commitments. Moreover, they should prioritise effective delivery over superficial gimmicks.
Need for a Sovereign Space Strategy
India's space programme has established a notable history of collaboration with the Soviet Union, France, Israel, Japan, and numerous European nations. However, since 2005, no other bilateral engagement has equalled the magnitude of India-US civil space cooperation.
Through ongoing space diplomacy, the 2020 space reforms, and the signing of the Artemis Accords, India's strategic orientation has progressively aligned with that of the United States, despite the considerable influence exerted by the principle of 'strategic autonomy'.
The rise of Indian space startups was a major boost to India-US space-economy networks. However, there is growing cognisance in New Delhi of the immense influence of US investors, the incubation and acceleration offered by the US government, and the speedier processes by which the US awards business contracts to overseas space companies.
Why go far?
Even the Five Eyes countries have struggled against the overwhelming pull from the US ecosystem for acquiring their homegrown strategic capabilities. Canada fought tooth and nail to keep its strategic asset, Macdonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) Space, under its control. Such influence looms large over the Indian commercial space ecosystem, too.
The curtailment of geospatial imagery sales by US service providers has affected shipping and insurance companies, as the latter lack visibility into the safety of their insured assets. Countries and entities with no role in the conflict have been blindsided when geospatial companies suddenly suspended their services. Since the conflict has not ended, and vital trade routes remain vulnerable to blockades, there are no estimates of the financial losses incurred by companies dependent on these services.
It is now certain that countries around the world will seek to reduce these painful dependencies, and those capable will fully eliminate them. India, for the sake of maintaining its strategic autonomy, needs to rethink its 'dependency as diplomacy'.
Commercial space companies will steer towards the best interests of their investors, their boards, and clientele. Indian government end-users cannot afford to depend on such companies, especially when the investors, boards, and clientele are non-Indian, and the companies are adhering to offence, defence, and ISR tasks laid out by a more commanding client.
Conclusion
The Indian space programme must be prepared for a multipolar world, where upholding sovereignty remains the highest priority. This preparation demands a complete overhaul of the institutional psychology, which starkly segregates civilian and defence needs. If India is to truly have a 'Sovereign Civil-Military Space Integration', it would need articulation of a national sovereign space strategy.
The shutter control experience reiterates that if India is to secure its trade routes, protect its overseas assets, safeguard its territorial realms, and ensure the security of the large Pravasi Bharatiya population, it would need sovereign space-based capabilities.
A space strategy articulation will properly communicate the role of space agencies, public- and private-sector enterprises, academic laboratories, startups, investors and bankers, accountants and secretaries, lawyers and policy-makers, and end-users during cathartic short-duration wars and also during the 'forever wars' India must confront.
The historic acceleration prompted by the Persian Gulf War has established a multipolar geopolitical configuration characterised by autonomous decision-making, a shift away from dependence on great powers and unreliable geopolitical blocs, and an autarkic approach to strategic initiatives that favours transactional diplomacy.
For those concerned about the overall slowdown in space activities, it is crucial to acknowledge that the Indian space programme may be undergoing rapid changes that require recalibration, realignment, restructuring, and philosophical re-evaluation as part of preparations for a multipolar world.
It is imperative that emphasis on sovereignty and strategic clarity concerning the space programme be prioritised as a matter of national interest. The challenging aspect is that there is no luxury of time to deliberate on these recommendations in elaborate conferences and roundtable discussions that are often mere social media photo opportunities. India may be staring and preparing for a major conflict.
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