A Long March 2F rocket lifts off October 30 carrying the Shenzhou-21 crewed spacecraft, part of China’s expanding space efforts. (credit: Xinhua)

From missions to activities: the defining space policy shift

by Namrata Goswami
Monday, November 10, 2025

The global space policy landscape is undergoing a profound conceptual transformation: a shift from missions to activities. For much of the space age, policy frameworks were driven by specific, mission-focused goals: launch a satellite, land a rover, achieve human spaceflight, conduct Mars missions, and demonstrate prestige. These missions, often animated by Cold War competition and national symbolism, defined space as a domain of episodic achievement. Yet, in the 21st century, the structure of global space governance, strategy, and policy is evolving toward consistency: ongoing activities in, from, and to space that combine civil, commercial, and military aspects into a unified, coherent system.

This policy shift changes how governments and industries think about presence and power in space. The next stage of space policy will focus not on individual projects but on establishing permanent capabilities, such as manufacturing, communications networks, defense systems, and space resource extraction. Understanding this shift requires revisiting the policy process itself. I define space policy as “a process of developing, prioritizing, and implementing a plan of action developed by the government entity entrusted with the task.” In the United States, this role has been led by the National Space Council (NSpC), which coordinates interagency priorities across civil, commercial, and defense domains. In China, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China writes White Papers on space activities and oversees a dense web of institutions, including the China National Space Administration (CNSA), China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). India’s Department of Space (DoS), operating under the Prime Minister’s Office, plays a parallel role, now joined by emerging actors such as New Space India Limited (NSIL), which was inaugurated in 2019 to bridge policy and commercial sectors.

The space policy process involves five stages: problem identification, policy formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation. Examining China and India through this lens reveals how these powers are reorienting their national space strategies from mission-driven pursuits to enduring activities that serve economic, geopolitical, and industrial objectives.

Conceptualizing space policy as process

The phrase “space policy” is too frequently associated with fixed documents rather than ongoing, adaptable processes. In truth, it functions as a system of negotiation and prioritization that balances the differing interests of bureaucratic agencies, industry players, and strategic considerations. We need to recollect the process to understand how the policy shifted from missions to activities. In a nutshell, the space policy process follows a step-by-step approach:

The figure below illustrates the five stages of the space policy process, from recognizing a national challenge or opportunity to evaluating policy outcomes. Each stage represents an iterative step in how nations like China and India develop and implement their space strategies.

Source: I built this diagram based on an excellent Policy Making and Implementation diagram provided by the Texas Politics Project.

1. Problem Identification: recognizing a national challenge or opportunity in space. For China, this included a starting and foundation stage (1949–1970), a preparation period (1970–2000), a demonstration phase, and a focus on planning long-term space activities (2001 onwards). During the 1990s, there was an emphasis on reducing technological dependence on foreign suppliers and demonstrating self-reliance through indigenous launch and satellite systems. For India, it meant moving beyond developmental applications of space (telecommunications, weather monitoring) toward global competitiveness and national security.
2. Policy Formulation: involves consultation and drafting. China’s iterative White Papers on Space Activities outline goals for exploration, industrial capacity, and defense integration. India’s process has followed a more incremental approach, through parliamentary debates and official policy announcements such as the Indian Space Policy 2023, which offered clear guidelines to the commercial space sector and emphasized space-based services and lunar activities. For instance, India’s Chandrayaan-4 mission, scheduled for 2027, was officially approved by the Union Cabinet of the Government of India on September 18, 2024, and aims to collect lunar samples from the Moon’s south pole and return them to Earth as part of India’s Space Vision 2047, thereby focusing on a permanent presence.
3. Policy Adoption is the political approval of goals and budgets. In China, this is integrated into five-year plans and supported by long-term industrial roadmaps like “Made in China 2025.” India’s adoption phase has increasingly involved the Cabinet-level Space Commission, which ensures executive coordination.
4. Policy Implementation via national agencies and industrial partnerships. China’s Long March launch program, Beidou navigation system, Tiangong space station, and its Chang’e lunar program demonstrate sustained operational capacity. India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, Gaganyaan human spaceflight project, and public-private satellite manufacturing initiatives show a similar shift toward institutionalized activity.
5. Policy Evaluation: reviewing performance, identifying gaps, and adjusting goals. For both countries, policy evaluation increasingly emphasizes not just technological success but also national security capacities, a push for an industrial space ecosystem that is sustainable and has global influence, and how effectively their programs translate into soft and hard power projection, market share, and governance leadership.

This policy cycle emphasizes that space policy is not a one-time decision but an ever-changing system of choices that connects national priorities with the growing scope of space activities.

From missions to activities: applying the policy framework to understand this shift

The shift toward activities in, from, and to space captures this new multidirectional logic:

• In space: operations and infrastructure include space stations, resource extraction, and manufacturing.
• From space: satellite services, Earth observation, and data-driven applications that underpin economies.
• To space: launch, logistics, and mobility systems enabling access and sustainability.

This reconceptualization stems from technological, economic, and strategic drivers. Reusable rockets, private investment, and dual-use technologies have blurred the boundary between civil and defense. Moreover, the expansion of space industries into national economic planning (as seen in China’s industrial strategies and India’s space commercialization initiatives) institutionalizes space as a permanent theater of activity. Importantly, this policy shift demands new forms of governance; institutions must now coordinate long-term efforts instead of one-time missions, which requires legal frameworks for traffic management, debris mitigation, space access, and resource rights, as well as financial systems to attract private capital.

China’s transition from missions to activities

China’s space program reflects a deliberate, state-led shift from symbolic missions to a lasting ecosystem of activities; an evolution driven by civil, industrial, and military integration. Under the Space Dream 2049, China aims to become a comprehensive space power: achieving technological independence and integrating space capabilities into national defense and economic plans. The CNSA provides strategic direction; CASC and China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) execute technical programs, while the People’s Liberation Army Aerospace Force (PLAASF) oversees space assets’ military and security applications. Together, they form a coordinated architecture of governance where space resource utilization, industry, and defense are unified.

a. Tiangong: continuous human presence in LEO

The Tiangong space station maintains a permanent presence in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), with an orbital inclination of 41° to 43° and an altitude ranging from 340 to 450 kilometers. It is designed to last over 10 years and includes a Tianhe core module and a Wentian experimental module. Unlike the earlier Shenzhou missions, which served as proof-of-concept efforts, Tiangong signifies the normalization of space habitation as a continuous activity. It is a national laboratory in LEO, hosting material science experiments, biotechnology research, and long-term life-support studies. By developing a team of taikonauts and regularly rotating crews, China integrates spaceflight as a steady civil and industrial activity, rather than a sporadic display of capability. The platform also serves as a training and logistics center for deep-space missions, especially lunar operations, thereby solidifying China’s infrastructure for future exploration and resource utilization.

b. Chang’e and the lunar continuum

The Chang’e lunar program demonstrates China’s shift from individual missions to a planned series of activities. Beginning with orbital reconnaissance and culminating in Chang’e 5’s sample return, the program demonstrates iterative learning and cumulative capability-building. Each stage has produced a new functional layer—remote sensing, automated landing, sample retrieval, and surface operations—that support future resource prospecting and lunar base construction. In this sense, the lunar program transitions from exploration to exploitation. Chang’e missions now feed into the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) initiative, jointly promoted with Russia but structured to preserve Chinese leadership. The lunar surface becomes not merely a scientific target but a domain of sustained industrial and geopolitical activity, with implications for energy extraction, materials processing, and off-Earth habitation. In fact, the Chang’e 5 mission also planted China’s flag near the landing site.

c. Tianwen-1 and systemic planetary activities

The Tianwen-1 Mars mission marks China’s entry into interplanetary exploration. Instead of focusing on a single high-profile success, China combined orbiter, lander, and rover functions in one mission to showcase the maturity of its design and control systems. The success of Tianwen-1 offers technical and managerial lessons for future missions, such as asteroid interception and Mars sample return. Beyond exploration, Tianwen’s data-processing and communication networks contribute to China’s growing deep-space infrastructure, relay satellites, tracking networks, and precision navigation capabilities that underpin global space logistics. The focus is no longer on reaching Mars per se, but on sustaining a planetary operations capability that can be extended across the solar system in the coming decades. In May 2025, China launched Tianwen-2, which aims to return samples from a near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3 and then conduct a flyby of the main-belt comet 311P. In 2021, in its White Paper on its space activities, China stated that it will develop a near-Earth asteroid defense system.

d. BeiDou: infrastructure for global positioning and autonomy

The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) has transitioned from a regional service to a global strategic utility. With the completion of its third generation (BDS-3), BeiDou now rivals GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo, enabling China to provide independent global positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services. What makes BeiDou an activity rather than a mission is its integration across multiple sectors—logistics, finance, agriculture, and military targeting—making it an indispensable part of China’s digital economy and defense architecture. The system’s open and restricted service modes facilitate dual-use functions: civilian accessibility combined with encrypted military precision. Its operation ensures sovereign autonomy in data, navigation, and information flows, which are central to China’s concept of space-enabled comprehensive national power.

e. Guowang: commercialization through megaconstellations

The proposed Guowang LEO broadband constellation epitomizes China’s push to transform space from an exploratory frontier into an industrial domain. Conceived as a state-supervised network of thousands of satellites, Guowang aims to provide national and international broadband coverage comparable to SpaceX’s Starlink, while embedding cyber-resilience and data sovereignty within China’s communications infrastructure. This move signals the commercialization of space as a continuous state activity, aligning with the government’s “new productive forces” strategy. Guowang blurs the boundary between private and public space industries. While it involves nominally commercial enterprises, strategic direction and spectrum allocation remain under state control, ensuring that the project reinforces China’s digital and economic security objectives. In 2020, the China National Development and Reform Commission declared satellite internet as a new “critical infrastructure” and prioritized it in their 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025).

f. Long March 9: industrial-scale logistics

The Long March 9 heavy-lift launcher represents the infrastructural backbone of China’s future interplanetary and industrial operations. It is designed for repeated, large-scale logistics to LEO and beyond, supporting modular station assembly, building space-based solar power satellites, lunar cargo transport, and deep-space probes. Through modular reusability and mass production, the Long March 9 program converts launch capability into an industrial supply chain, capable of sustaining large payload throughput rather than isolated demonstration flights. This evolution mirrors China’s broader shift toward systemic space logistics, positioning it for leadership in constructing and servicing orbital and cislunar infrastructures.

g. Shenlong: military-civil fusion in practice

The Shenlong (“Divine Dragon”) spaceplane exemplifies the Civil-Military Fusion (CMF) strategy: using shared technologies for both civilian and defense purposes. Shenlong is believed to conduct orbital test flights involving reconnaissance, payload delivery, and possibly satellite retrieval or inspection. Its reusability and dual-use design mark a turning point in China’s ability to conduct persistent, flexible space operations. Shenlong bridges the gap between commercial reusability efforts and military preparedness, functioning as a platform for adaptive on-orbit activity; maintenance, surveillance, or counter-space roles. The existence of such a system indicates that China’s military is embedding space access into its broader doctrine of integrated deterrence, where the line between peaceful operations and defense readiness remains intentionally blurred.

h. Governance: integrated state-led coordination

China’s governance of space activities remains centrally orchestrated. The State Council provides overall policy direction; CNSA formulates plans; CASC, CAST, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) implement them; and the PLAASF integrates outcomes into defense operations. This interagency synchronization, supervised by the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development, ensures unity of purpose and minimizes bureaucratic fragmentation. Through regular White Papers on Space Activities, China articulates its goals in terms of “peaceful development,” “cooperation,” and “shared destiny.” Yet, these documents also affirm its commitment to strategic self-sufficiency. The policy process, therefore, is a mechanism for sustaining continuous space activities, binding exploration, industry, and defense into a single framework of national rejuvenation.

These activities indicate that China’s policy has matured beyond simple demonstration missions into sustained system-building. The interagency nature of its policymaking, spanning the State Council, CASC, CAS, and the PLA, reflects an integrated model where policy formulation and implementation are synchronized under the Communist Party of China’s direction. China’s White Papers consistently frame space as “a new domain of human activity” and emphasize international cooperation while maintaining strategic autonomy. The dual-use nature of its programs, where civilian and commercial technology serve military preparedness, illustrates how the boundary between peaceful and deterrent functions is increasingly blurred, primarily through its Civil-Military fusion strategy.

India: from demonstration to sustainable activity through strategic autonomy

India’s space policy trajectory reflects a gradual but deliberate transformation, from mission-oriented technological demonstration to activity-based, multi-actor system-building. Historically, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) prioritized social development: tele-education, meteorology, communication, and disaster management. These were purpose-driven missions designed to serve domestic needs. However, with the Indian Space Policy 2023, India is now transitioning toward a diversified ecosystem of continuous scientific, commercial, and military activities anchored in its long-standing doctrine of strategic autonomy. The policy outlines roles among institutions. ISRO: Focuses on exploration, advanced R&D, and scientific missions; IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre) serves as a regulatory interface, authorizing and enabling private participation; NSIL (NewSpace India Limited) commercializes government-developed technologies and manages public-private contracts. These entities create a hybrid governance framework, maintaining state oversight while encouraging non-state involvement.

a. Chandrayaan-3 and the institutionalization of lunar activity

The success of Chandrayaan-3 (2023), the first soft landing near the Moon’s south pole, signifies more than a national triumph; it marks India’s entry into sustained lunar activity. With autonomous landing technology, enhanced rover mobility, and extended mission duration, India demonstrated critical resource mapping and long-duration exploration capability. Rather than ending with the mission’s completion, Chandrayaan-3’s outcomes are feeding into a long-term lunar exploration pipeline, including potential participation in the Artemis Accords’ lunar surface infrastructure and indigenous collaborations under ISRO’s Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) project with Japan. This continuity signals that India’s lunar program is evolving from disconnected expeditions into an ongoing operational enterprise, integrating scientific, industrial, and diplomatic dimensions.

b. Gaganyaan: sustaining human spaceflight capability

The Gaganyaan program embodies India’s ambition to establish a permanent human spaceflight capability. Gaganyaan is building a reusable architecture: crewed modules, launch abort systems, and a recovery mechanism supporting future orbital habitats. The mission’s value lies in its continuity: once operational, the infrastructure, training facilities, and industrial base required for human spaceflight will enable a sustained domestic space operations ecosystem. India’s emphasis on indigenous production, especially through the private sector’s role in avionics, life-support systems, and testing, reflects a broader industrial deepening aimed at long-term self-reliance.

c. NavIC: embedding space infrastructure into national activity

India’s Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) system aims to offer independent positioning and timing services over the Indian Ocean region. NavIC underpins critical applications, from telecommunications and transportation to disaster management and defense targeting. Through continuous satellite replenishment and system upgrades, NavIC is now an operational infrastructure, though not without its glitches. According to open-source assessments, the NavIC constellation could become defunct, with only four of its 11 satellites currently operational, most of which are nearing the end of their life cycles. While the new generation satellite, NVS-01, launched in May 2023, is operational, its successor, NVS-02, launched in January 2025, failed to reach its intended geosynchronous orbit due to a malfunctioning propulsion system. In May 2025, India could not launch an Earth observation satellite due to the failure of its PSLV-C61. As per ISRO Chairperson, V. Narayanan, “The PSLV-C61 mission faced a setback during the third stage due to a drop in chamber pressure, which impacted the fourth stage performance and led to mission loss.”

d. Private launch ecosystem: from missions to market activities

The rise of private launch firms such as Skyroot Aerospace and Agnikul Cosmos marks a structural inflection point. Supported by IN-SPACe’s regulatory reforms, these firms are developing reusable and modular launch vehicles, targeting rapid turnaround and cost efficiency. What distinguishes this new phase is that space launches are no longer state-conducted missions; they are becoming ongoing industrial activities, contributing to job creation, export revenue, and technological diffusion. The Skyroot Vikram and Agnikul’s Agnibaan programs, which aim to build India’s first single-piece 3D-printed semi-cryogenic engine rocket, exemplify India’s effort to democratize access to space within a state-supervised but market-oriented framework. This transition mirrors global trends in commercial space but retains India’s distinctive feature: private participation within a public-policy architecture grounded in national development goals and strategic autonomy.

e. Defense integration: institutionalizing deterrence as activity

India’s establishment of the Defence Space Agency (DSA) and Defence Space Research Organisation (DSRO) institutionalizes space security as a continuous strategic activity. The Mission Shakti (2019) anti-satellite test demonstrated technical competence in kinetic deterrence. Still, the enduring significance lies in the institutional learning it generated: space situational awareness, orbital debris monitoring, and command integration. India’s approach emphasizes space control through resilience and deterrence, which is consistent with its doctrine of credible minimum deterrence.

f. Governance: pluralism and policy diffusion

Unlike China’s centralized model, India’s process is more pluralistic. The Department of Space, Space Commission, and emerging commercial bodies coordinate through inter-ministerial dialogue, mirroring the U.S. National Space Council’s interagency character. This diffusion of authority allows flexibility and private sector innovation, but it also challenges coherence and resource prioritization. India’s approach thus represents a hybrid strategy: a focus on development goals combined with geostrategic ambition. It seeks to institutionalize continuous commercial, civil, and military activity without relinquishing its normative advocacy for peaceful uses of outer space. India is among the 18 founding members of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space (UN COPOUS), an ad hoc committee established in 1958 and made permanent by a United Nations General Assembly Resolution in 1959. Krishna Rao, an early architect of India’s space diplomacy, played a vital role in the 1950s and 1960s by articulating India’s position on outer space regulations, which included the 1972 Convention on Liability.

Comparative insights: institutional models and strategic intent

Both China and India exemplify the reorientation of national space policy from missions/projects to building ecosystems. However, their institutional architectures diverge sharply.

This table compares the institutional, strategic, and international dimensions of China’s and India’s space policies.

Table: comparative space policy dimensions: China and India

Figure: Space Budgets 2023

Source: European Space Agency, Report on the Space Economy 2024, p.4. This includes the graphic as well as the description of what it depicts.

China’s model aligns with long-term state capacity building: every major project contributes to the architecture of sustained activity, industrial chains, logistics, and global influence. India’s model, while less centralized, is rapidly maturing through regulatory reform and entrepreneurial participation, signaling a bottom-up path toward continuous activity. Crucially, both nations view space as an extension of national modernization. Their activities are inseparable from terrestrial priorities, digital connectivity, resource security, and geopolitical stature.

Figure: Mass of spacecraft launched, 2014-2023

Source: European Space Agency, Report on the Space Economy 2024, p.5. This includes the graphic as well as the description of what it depicts.

Integrating the space policy process into the shift

Applying the five-stage policy process to the missions-to-activities transition clarifies the mechanism of change:

1. Problem Identification: recognition that mission-centric frameworks are inadequate for sustained space presence.
2. Policy Formulation: drafting policies to support commercial access, dual-use infrastructure, and interoperability. China’s 2021 White Paper and India’s 2023 space policy explicitly endorse “sustainable utilization” and “commercial ecosystems.”
3. Policy Adoption: Integrating space into national planning, China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–25) and India’s Budget 2024 allocations prioritize industrial development of space assets.
4. Policy Implementation: operationalizing spaceports, manufacturing centers, and data services that enable continuous activity.
5. Policy Evaluation: Both nations are reassessing their governance models, and they are now participating more actively in multilateral forums such as COPUOS and G20 space discussions.

Applying the space policy process reveals the technological and institutional shift from missions to activities. Policy processes that once revolved around symbolic goals must now sustain multi-decade programs involving public-private partnerships, regulatory harmonization, and cross-sectoral coordination.

The governance challenge

As China and India expand their activities, global institutions lag. UNOOSA and its treaties, while foundational, were designed for an era of limited actors and specific missions. These treaties address conduct in space (non-weaponization, liability, debris mitigation), not presence in space (industrial production, permanent habitation, commercial mining). New governance challenges, such as cislunar traffic management, on-orbit servicing, and space resource utilization, demand frameworks that recognize activities as the normative unit of policy. Both China and India have established policy steps for this new paradigm at a multilateral level: China through bilateral cooperation and the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), India through participation in the Artemis Accords and advocacy for equitable access within BRICS forums. The emerging norm is pluralism: multiple governance nodes reflecting diverse political economies of space. The next decade will define whether this pluralism matures into coordinated governance or fragmented competition.

Conclusion

The shift in space policy from missions to activities indicates a significant transformation in how nations view power, progress, and permanence beyond Earth. Missions once symbolized national pride: displays of capability and ambition. Activities, however, emphasize continuity, ecosystem development, and making space a regular operational area. China’s centralized and strategically organized model shows how government-led integration can coordinate industry, promote scientific progress, and send geopolitical signals within a unified vision of comprehensive spacepower. India’s diverse and reform-oriented approach underscores the potential of democratic flexibility, where innovation, commercialization, and development goals combine to expand influence. Both models demonstrate that success in the next decade will rely less on symbolic accomplishments and more on institutional resilience and consistent policies.

Understanding this policy shift is essential. It redefines national security, economic opportunity, and scientific collaboration in an increasingly crowded and contested space environment. Therefore, the future of space governance depends on recognizing that policy must evolve from managing missions to developing systems, where resilience, regulation, and responsibility are integrated at every activity stage. As a process, space policy must become forward-looking, incorporating foresight, flexibility, and collaboration across all five stages: problem identification (agenda-setting), policy formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation. It must address technological and strategic needs and the societal and ethical implications of sustained presence in space. The ultimate measure of a nation’s space achievement will be how effectively it sustains and manages space activities. This marks the beginning of a continuous civilization-building endeavor in space, where policy becomes the foundation of permanence.

Namrata Goswami, Ph.D., is a Professor of Space Security with the Schriever and West Space Scholars Program at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States Government, the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or the United States Space Force. Email: ngoswam1@jh.edu

Acknowledgment: I want to take this opportunity to thank my friend Dennis Wingo for helping me understand this policy shift from missions to activities and why it matters.

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