Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The Strategic Shift: From Naval Dominance to Orbital Advantage
Maritime security in South Asia is undergoing a fundamental transformation. The traditional measures of naval power—fleet size, overseas bases, and control of chokepoints—no longer determine strategic advantage alone. Instead, the ability to project persistent surveillance across vast oceanic spaces, integrate real-time threat data, and maintain autonomous command and control systems has become decisive. Space-based assets are now integral to maritime operations, reshaping the strategic competition across the Indian Ocean.
This shift reflects broader technological changes in military operations. Automation, digitalization, and remote-control systems mean that both civilian and military maritime activities increasingly depend on satellite-enabled connectivity and real-time data integration. Traditional surveillance platforms—maritime patrol aircraft and surface vessels—cannot provide the persistent, all-weather coverage that modern maritime domain awareness requires. Satellites equipped with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and electro-optical imaging systems fill this gap, enabling detection and tracking regardless of weather or daylight conditions. The integration of space capabilities into maritime strategy has therefore become essential rather than supplementary.
India’s Space-Maritime Integration: From Doctrine to Operational Capability
India has emerged as the most strategically advanced power in integrating space capabilities into its maritime framework. The catalyst was the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, which exposed critical gaps in coastal surveillance and maritime domain awareness. This prompted New Delhi to systematically develop space-based intelligence systems.
India’s space-maritime portfolio includes several critical systems. The Radar Imaging Satellite-2 (RISAT-2), launched in 2009, was specifically designed to provide real-time imagery for maritime surveillance. More significantly, GSAT-7, a dedicated military communication satellite for the Indian Navy launched in 2009, has fundamentally altered operational capabilities. GSAT-7 enables secure, resilient communication across naval platforms including warships, submarines, and maritime patrol aircraft. The satellite’s operational value became evident during the 2017 Doklam standoff, where it reportedly provided critical monitoring of Chinese military movements. Intelligence assessments indicate that GSAT-7 has also been used to track Chinese submarine movements in the Indian Ocean region.
India’s capabilities extended further with the November 2025 launch of GSAT-7R, an advanced communication satellite designed to enhance naval operational coordination. More strategically significant is India’s establishment of the Information Fusion Center–Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) in 2018. This facility integrates data from multiple sources: space-based automatic identification systems, coastal radar networks, and maritime cloud networks. The processed intelligence is then shared with India’s regional partners, effectively extending India’s surveillance architecture across the Indian Ocean through cooperative mechanisms.
The Indian government has sanctioned an ambitious project to launch 52 military satellites over five years as part of its space-based surveillance program. This commitment signals a sustained strategic intent to maintain space-based dominance in the Indian Ocean. Institutionally, this shift is reflected in India’s Maritime Doctrine 2025, which explicitly incorporated space as an operational domain alongside traditional land, sea, air, and cyber spheres. This doctrinal integration indicates that Indian military planners now view space capabilities as foundational to maritime strategy rather than supplementary support.
China’s Expanding Orbital Footprint and Regional Penetration
China is simultaneously expanding its space-based presence over the Indian Ocean with strategic intent. Chinese research vessels including the Shi Yan-6 and Shen Hai Yi Hao have conducted extensive undersea terrain mapping operations in the Indian Ocean region. These activities provide dual-use intelligence for both civilian scientific purposes and military applications.
China’s reconnaissance satellite constellation—particularly the Yaogan series—provides all-weather, high-resolution imagery across vast geographic areas. The Shentong satellite system enables secure command and control, intelligence sharing, and real-time communication across Chinese naval platforms. Complementing these systems, the Gaofen satellites deliver high-resolution, all-weather imaging that enhances maritime domain awareness. Together, these systems provide China with persistent surveillance capabilities comparable to India’s emerging architecture.
More strategically significant is China’s development of the BeiDou navigation system, which achieved global coverage in 2020. Unlike reliance on the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), BeiDou provides China with autonomous positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services. Its technical features—inter-satellite communication and reduced vulnerability to jamming—make it suitable for military applications in contested environments. Critically, China has diffused BeiDou technology throughout South Asia. Pakistan has incorporated BeiDou into its military and civilian navigation systems, reflecting a broader pattern of Chinese technological integration across the region. This represents a form of strategic embedding: regional actors become dependent on Chinese space infrastructure, creating asymmetric vulnerabilities and binding them into China’s technological ecosystem.
China’s Indian Ocean presence therefore extends beyond the conventional markers of naval power. It includes a constant overhead presence—a layer of surveillance and communication that complements naval deployments and port facilities. This integration of space assets with maritime operations represents a comprehensive approach to regional dominance.
The Vulnerability Gap: South Asian Littoral States and Strategic Dependence
While India and China expand their space-maritime capabilities, most South Asian littoral states remain strategically constrained. Sri Lanka and the Maldives occupy geographically critical positions along major sea lines of communication, yet lack sovereign space-based surveillance capabilities.
Sri Lanka’s space program remains nascent. The country conducted its first space launch in 2019 with Raavana-1, a small research satellite. Subsequent developments—the KITSUNE satellite and the BIRDS-X Dragonfly nanosatellite launched in 2025—represent incremental progress. However, these systems do not yet provide operational maritime surveillance or security applications. Colombo remains dependent on external partners for maritime domain awareness. This vulnerability is particularly acute given Sri Lanka’s location on critical shipping routes and its exposure to transnational maritime threats including piracy, smuggling, and illegal fishing.
Recent policy developments signal recognition of this strategic gap. Sri Lanka’s Cabinet approved formulation of a National Space Policy, and the government has officially acknowledged space technology’s relevance to security architecture. These policy shifts suggest a strategic reorientation, though implementation capacity and funding remain uncertain.
The Maldives faces even greater challenges. Its maritime zone exceeds 900,000 square kilometers—a vast area requiring persistent surveillance. The Maldives currently relies on maritime domain awareness software such as SeaVision for security operations, meaning it purchases processed intelligence rather than controlling its own surveillance assets. In 2022, the Maldives established the Maldivian Space Research Organization (MSRO), marking the beginning of institutional development. In 2024, the Maldivian defense minister outlined plans to develop a satellite-based maritime surveillance system, and MSRO has entered partnerships with international actors including Arche Orbital Systems. A proposed Maldives Space Fund signals long-term intent to develop sovereign space infrastructure. However, these initiatives remain at early stages, and the Maldives continues to depend on external actors for independent maritime domain awareness.
Strategic Implications: Asymmetry, Dependence, and Regional Vulnerability
The divergence between India and China’s space-maritime capabilities and those of other South Asian states creates structural asymmetries with profound strategic implications. The littoral states—Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and others—lack the technical capacity, financial resources, and institutional frameworks to develop independent space-based surveillance systems. This creates a persistent vulnerability: they cannot independently monitor their own maritime zones or detect threats in real time.
This vulnerability creates strategic dependence. Sri Lanka and the Maldives must rely on external powers—India, China, or other partners—for maritime domain awareness. This dependence extends beyond simple information-sharing; it creates asymmetric vulnerabilities. A power controlling surveillance data can selectively share or withhold information, shaping how littoral states perceive threats and respond to security challenges. China’s diffusion of BeiDou technology demonstrates how space infrastructure becomes a vector for strategic influence and embedding.
The space-maritime transformation also creates new domains for strategic competition that smaller states cannot effectively contest. India and China are competing for orbital dominance, intelligence collection superiority, and the ability to deny or degrade each other’s space-based systems. Smaller states are largely passive in this competition, unable to protect their own interests or maintain independent strategic autonomy in maritime security.
Additionally, the integration of space capabilities with maritime operations creates new vulnerabilities to space-based disruption. If conflicts escalate to include anti-satellite operations or space warfare, littoral states dependent on external space systems could find their maritime security architecture suddenly degraded or disabled. This represents a new category of strategic risk that traditional naval forces cannot mitigate.
Strategic Outlook: The Emerging Space-Maritime Security Architecture
The Indian Ocean region is developing a new strategic architecture in which space dominance directly translates to maritime advantage. India is building a comprehensive space-maritime system with dedicated military satellites, data fusion centers, and regional intelligence-sharing mechanisms. China is developing parallel capabilities while simultaneously embedding regional actors within its technological ecosystem through BeiDou and other systems.
The critical gap is the inability of smaller South Asian states to develop independent space-based maritime security capabilities. Sri Lanka and the Maldives recognize this vulnerability and are initiating space programs, but these efforts are constrained by technical capacity, funding, and institutional development timelines. Meaningful sovereign space-maritime capabilities will require sustained investment and international partnership.
The strategic competition in the Indian Ocean will increasingly be determined by space-based capabilities rather than traditional naval metrics. Powers that control orbital assets control maritime domain awareness, communications, and the ability to project power across vast oceanic spaces. This shift reinforces existing asymmetries and creates new vulnerabilities for littoral states. Regional stability will depend partly on whether smaller states can develop sufficient space-based capabilities to maintain strategic autonomy, or whether they become increasingly dependent on larger powers for maritime security—a dependence that itself becomes a source of strategic vulnerability.
