India’s space industry is becoming a bigger business for lawyers as private companies, investors and foreign players move deeper into a sector where raising capital or doing business can bring questions around national security, technology transfers, exports and regulation.
The country's space ecosystem has expanded rapidly, with registered space startups rising from one in 2014 to around 440 in 2026, according to government data released on 14 August. Its space economy was valued at $9 billion as of August, with projections to reach $40-45 billion over the next decade.
The result is a growing range of legal work, from foreign investment and regulatory approvals to technology transfers, fundraising, joint ventures and commercial contracts.
“We have seen a steady rise in legal mandates in the space sector. This has been driven by a combination of regulatory reforms and increased private and foreign investment,” said Ankita Kumar, partner at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, who advises clients on defence-related matters spanning structuring, procurement regulation, technology transfer and foreign collaboration.
Businesses that once worked with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as vendors are now building independent ventures, driving demand for legal advice, Kumar added.
Law firms are advising space-tech startups, unicorns, investors and established aerospace companies on funding, foreign investment, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) approvals, technology transfers, M&A, commercial contracts, intellectual property and export controls.
Capital meets regulation
Foreign companies are also exploring Indian subsidiaries and joint ventures (JVs) following the liberalization of foreign direct investment (FDI) rules.
“We are seeing early interest from foreign entities exploring an Indian subsidiary or JV route to access the liberalized FDI caps, though listed aerospace/defence primes remain a smaller share of our current mandates than the startup and investor side,” said Siddharth Mody, a partner at JSA Advocates & Solicitors specializing in M&As, private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC).
JSA recently advised an Indian space-tech company on a pre-Series B funding round involving the investment arm of a large diversified financial-services group. The mandate included checks on the company’s IN-SPACe authorization status, Isro technology-transfer arrangements and exposure to dual-use export controls.
“The common thread across these mandates is that investors are no longer treating space/deep-tech as a niche allocation as it now sits alongside their mainstream technology and financial-services deal flow but with an added regulatory diligence layer,” Mody said.
Khaitan & Co. is also seeing increased demand from investors entering the sector. Sanchit Agarwal, a partner in its corporate and commercial practice, said institutional and large domestic and foreign investors are increasingly exploring opportunities in the sector.
“We are witnessing a significant rise in legal mandates from institutional and large investors, both domestic and foreign, who are keen to enter the space sector,” Agarwal said. Home-grown unicorns are also looking to participate in requests for proposals (RFPs) issued by ISRO for final product development and operational assistance, he said.
The FDI liberalization has also expanded advisory work, with automatic-route limits of 74% for satellites, 49% for launch vehicles and spaceports, and 100% for components and subsystems.
A different regulatory stack
The complexity varies with the business. A satellite manufacturer can face a different regulatory regime from a satellite operator, launch company or communications provider.
Space mandates can involve FDI, IN-SPACe, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC) approvals for spectrum and satellite communications, Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) compliance, Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (SCOMET) export controls, security clearances, geospatial-data permissions, and environmental and land-use approvals.
"Each of those activities comes with a different set of regulations. The difficult part is often understanding how these regulations interact,” said Anirudh Sharma, founder and chief executive of Digantara, a space-tech company.
Defence-linked activities may also require ministry of defence clearances and end-use certification.
“Space is a highly capital-intensive, high-risk industry with significant geopolitical and national-security implications,” Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas' Kumar said.
That makes the work more government-facing than in conventional technology businesses, said Sharath Chandrasekhar, partner at DSK Legal who advises on M&A. “Unlike conventional technology businesses, space companies operate in an ecosystem involving national security, strategic technologies, orbital resources and India’s international obligations.”
A key complication is dual-use technology, which can have both civilian and military applications, including satellite imagery, communications, navigation systems and components.
“Dual-use technology particularly requires a lot of management and scrutiny as they have military-use cases,” said Bagmisikha Puhan, managing partner at Puhan & Puhan LLP, who has worked in space law for 11 years. Companies working with foreign customers or using foreign-made components can face additional scrutiny, she said.
The approval process can also be lengthy. Nikhil Narendran, partner at Trilegal, said approvals in his experience can take six to nine months and sometimes around a year when national-security considerations, multiple ministries and security clearances are involved.
Law firms said they do not yet have dedicated space practices. Instead, mandates are handled by cross-practice teams drawing on M&A/PE, regulatory, TMT, tax, intellectual property and trade/export-control specialists.
Tejas Bharadwaj, senior research analyst at Carnegie India, said the sector still needs greater clarity around newer activities such as in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing and orbital data centres. Timely guidelines, he said, would help companies attract investment and negotiate international partnerships.
Chandrasekhar expects the work to become more sophisticated over the next three to five years, as investments, M&A, JVs, technology licensing, satellite and launch contracts, insurance, liability, procurement and cross-border transactions grow more complex.