Skyroot’s Vikram-1 just made India the third country where a private company – not a government agency has put payloads into orbit. Agnikul is now working on booster recovery. And in July 2026, IN-SPACe published India’s first-ever rulebook for planned re-entry: the deliberate, controlled return of a spacecraft, capsule, or cargo pod to Earth.
This isn’t theoretical anymore. The first re-entry authorisation applications are about to land on IN-SPACe’s desk and for foreign operators, one of the crucial question they’ll face isn’t aerodynamics. It is corporate structure.
For a foreign operator, the obvious question is whether the spacecraft can safely return to India. The question that actually determines how the mission gets built is: through which Indian entity should it be undertaken?
The Indian Regulatory Gateway
A foreign company can’t apply for re-entry authorisation in its own name. The application has to be routed through an Indian entity and that single requirement pulls the whole mission into India’s regulatory orbit. The Indian applicant becomes responsible for coordinating the authorisation process, supplying technical information, meeting safety and security conditions, arranging local warnings and recovery support, and sorting out insurance and liability.
But here’s another important aspect: an “Indian entity” doesn’t have to mean a newly incorporated subsidiary. There are three real paths in picking the right option.
Which Operator Are You?
The one-off mission → a collaboration arrangement If this is a single experimental flight, engage an existing Indian space-sector company under a collaboration or service arrangement. The spacecraft stays owned and technically controlled by the foreign company; the Indian partner handles the regulatory interface and local operational support. No shares change hands, so this typically sits outside FDI instead, FEMA governs the cross-border payments: mission-support fees, reimbursements, technology charges, insurance premiums, guarantees, indemnity payments.
The repeat player → a joint venture Planning recurring missions? A JV makes more sense once you need real Indian capability – tracking, telemetry, mission control, recovery operations, receiving infrastructure. How much foreign ownership you can hold under the automatic route depends entirely on what the JV actually does day to day.
The long-term bet → a wholly-owned subsidiary Maximum control, maximum commitment. But 100% ownership isn’t automatic everywhere where the subsidiary’s activity falls into a category capped at 74% or 49%, you’ll need prior government approval before you’re actually in business.
The FDI Problem Nobody’s Solved Yet
Here’s where it gets interesting. India’s current FDI policy sets clear thresholds for the space sector:
- Up to 74% (automatic route) — satellite manufacturing and operation, satellite-data products, ground and user segments
- Up to 49% (automatic route) — launch vehicles and associated systems, spaceports
- Up to 100% (automatic route) — specified component, system, and subsystem manufacturing
The FDI policy assigns clear caps of 49%, 74% or 100% to recognised space activities such as launch vehicles, satellite operations, ground segments and component manufacturing. But re-entry missions, cargo-return vehicles and re-entry modules still sit outside these neat boxes. Until the FDI policy catches up, classification will run on substance, not labels. In that gap, alignment with the Department of Space is not optional it is the key to designing the investment and operating structure.
The Practical Route
For an isolated foreign mission, partnering with an experienced Indian operator will almost always beat standing up a new investment structure from scratch. For a continuing commercial programme, a joint venture within the applicable automatic-route limit strikes the best balance between foreign technology and Indian operating capability. A wholly-owned subsidiary earns its complexity only when control is genuinely essential and only after the sectoral category and approval route have been mapped out in advance.
The Real Opportunity
The new re-entry framework isn’t just a safety regulation it’s the opening bid for an entirely new Indian market: mission control, tracking, recovery, insurance, engineering, regulatory support. Every foreign mission that comes through will need an Indian partner for some piece of that chain.
A spacecraft’s journey ends when it safely returns to Earth. For a foreign operator, the legal journey only ends when the Indian structure, FEMA route, contractual responsibility, and liability framework are locked in before the mission ever leaves the ground.