Space Compliance in India: IN-SPACe, DGFT, IEC, and the Paperwork Before Liftoff

You built the satellite.

The payload works. The software works. The hardware works. Environmental testing is complete. Your CAD files have multiplied into mysterious versions named:

'final_v2_final_actual_latest_revised'

You are emotionally prepared for launch.

Unfortunately, India has one more boss level before your satellite gets anywhere near a rocket. And unlike previous stages, this is no longer about thinking ahead. This is where you start opening portals, creating accounts, submitting applications, and discovering that your satellite project is also a company, a financial entity, an international trade participant, and a regulatory object: all at once.

*Invariant AI turns that compliance maze into a checklist so you spend less time in portals and more time building.*

[embed]**Book a Free Consultation!**

The good news is that if you followed the documentation advice from the previous posts, this stage becomes much easier.

Because these forms are not really asking:

“Do you have a satellite?”

They are asking:

“What exactly does this spacecraft do, who owns it, what does it carry, what does it transmit, and why should we allow it into orbit?”

Your First Launch Is Actually Into Portals

Most teams imagine the mission flow looks like:

Satellite → Rocket → Space

The real version usually looks more like:

Satellite → Account Creation → PDF Upload → Clarification Request → Revised PDF Upload → Space

For Indian satellite companies and space startups, three entities usually appear early in the process:

**IN-SPACe is the single-window autonomous body under the Department of Space responsible for authorising all private space activities in India. Under the [NGP 2024 framework](https://www.inspace.gov.in/sys_attachment.do?sys_id=5d532e37877102503b0f0d060cbb35cf)*, any Indian entity launching or operating a satellite, running ground infrastructure, or providing space-based services must obtain IN-SPACe authorisation. Operating without it is not a grey area: the Indian Space Policy treats it as non-compliance*, with consequences ranging from suspension of activities to financial penalties.

The authorisation timeline, once your application is accepted, is officially 75 to 120 days. Applicants are advised to submit six months before their target launch date. In practice, this means the clock starts much earlier than most teams expect.

DGFT (Directorate General of Foreign Trade) enters the picture much earlier than most founders expect. Modern satellites rarely have a purely local supply chain.Reaction wheels, star trackers, propulsion systems, RF hardware, sensors. Many subsystems involve imported components or international partners.

DGFT governs how these technologies move across borders and whether additional export controls apply.

IEC (Import Export Code) is a deceptively routine-sounding ten-digit code issued by DGFT that becomes a prerequisite the moment your mission involves cross-border transactions.

Procuring components from overseas? You need an IEC.

Sending technical drawings to an integration partner abroad? Depending on the technology, you may need more than an IEC.

You may need an **SCOMET** authorisation filed on the DGFT portal and that’s a whole other rabbit hole. Space systems become international surprisingly fast. The IEC is how India knows your company is a participant in that international activity.

Mission Type Determines Your Compliance Pathway

The forms are not organized around spacecraft size. Nobody particularly cares whether you built a 3U CubeSat or a 150 kg platform. What determines your compliance journey is mission intent.

Communication missions bring spectrum coordination, WPC frequency licensing, ITU filing obligations, interference analysis, and ground station authorization into scope.

If your TT&C or Mission Control Centre is located outside India, IN-SPACe requires you to demonstrate a significant business justification and establish that the arrangement does not pose national security risks and you must maintain at least one MCC within Indian territory.

Earth observation missions require a detailed payload capability package covering ground sampling distance, revisit assumptions, onboard processing architecture, and data dissemination plans. India’s framework distinguishes between high-resolution data (sub-30cm GSD) and primary data (above 30cm), with different authorization requirements for each.

If your payload is capable of imaging Indian territory at high resolution, that capability itself becomes part of the authorization conversation- not just the data you plan to collect.

Propulsion systems create debris mitigation obligations. Authorization frameworks now expect orbital sustainability planning; documented fuel budgets, maneuver assumptions, passivation strategy, and a credible deorbit plan

And all this is expected before the authorization is granted!

GEO missions involve orbital slot strategy and ITU coordination processes that require an advisory note from IN-SPACe before you can even initiate the WPC filing process. The ITU’s Advance Publication Information process alone can take years. Starting late is not a recoverable situation.

International components and collaborations trigger SCOMET. The SCOMET list is India’s dual-use export control framework, aligned with international regimes including the Wassenaar Arrangement and the Missile Technology Control Regime. SCOMET applications for space-related items are reviewed by the **Inter-Ministerial Working Group (IMWG), which includes representatives from the [Ministry of External Affairs](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ministry-of-external-affairs-india/), [DRDO](https://www.linkedin.com/company/drdo-ministry-of-defence-govt-of-india/), and [ISRO](https://www.linkedin.com/company/officialisro/)**; and meets monthly. If your product classification is incorrect or your technical description is vague, expect delays.

Critically, SCOMET controls are not limited to physical hardware. Sending technical software, code, or drawings via email to a foreign party can require a SCOMET authorisation under form ANF 2O filed on the DGFT portal.

Your satellite has acquired side quests. Each mission characteristic quietly creates a different regulatory pathway, and several may apply simultaneously.

Documents That Will Save Future You

By the time you are approaching PDR, and certainly before CDR, you should have living versions of the following:

On the engineering side: Mission Requirements Document, Concept of Operations, Payload Capability Package, Communications Architecture Document, Ground Segment Definition, Debris Mitigation Plan, Risk Assessment, configuration-controlled subsystem specifications, and verification and validation plans.

On the organizational side: company registration details, ownership structure, financial capability documentation, indigenous content breakdown where required, and international partner information.

This matters because IN-SPACe is not only evaluating your satellite. It is evaluating whether your organization can responsibly build, operate, and support it over the mission lifetime. The engineering artifacts and the organizational artifacts are reviewed together.

Teams that have this documentation ready move through the process. Teams that don’t spend weeks reconstructing engineering decisions from Slack threads.

Indias Compliance Ecosystem Is Still Being Written

India’s private space ecosystem is moving fast, which is genuinely exciting, and also means the regulatory landscape is actively evolving.

“**Between November 2022 and December 2024, IN-SPACe issued 38 authorisations to 23 private entities.**”

State space policies from Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh have now been finalized, each with its own incentive structures for space companies. The NGP 2024 framework continues to be interpreted and refined.

In practice, this means a process that worked six months ago may already have an updated template or revised advisory note.

Nobody wants to build a submission package around outdated requirements and discover this at the review stage.

Coming Up Next…

A closer look at IN-SPACe application packages, authorization workflows, and the strange process of turning a spacecraft into an impressive stack of PDFs.

If You Quietly Opened Your Mission Timeline While Reading This

That is a reasonable response.

**Invariant AI** tracks evolving IN-SPACe requirements, DGFT procedures, SCOMET classifications, and documentation frameworks so your team is always working from current information, not last year’s template.

We map the compliance pathway specific to your mission architecture and build the documentation scaffolding into your development cycle so it exists when you need it, not after you need it.

The question at CDR should not be “What documents do we need?” It should be “Which version should we upload?”

If your satellite currently exists as seventeen folders, four spreadsheets, and a collection of Slack messages called, we should probably talk.

[embed]Book a Free Consultation! *Invariant AI*