Space no longer belongs only to governments and super nations. Now, the last frontier is busier than ever, filled with startups, universities, emerging countries, and even high school groups launching satellites and looking up. Entry costs have plummeted, opening the skies to a new age of innovation, economic development, and global cooperation.
But with so many new entrants, the distinction between civilian and military space operations is growing more and more indistinct. Almost 2,850 objects were sent into orbit in 2024 alone, and commercial satellite sales have skyrocketed to over $285 billion, fueled by mega-constellations such as Starlink.
Countries all over Africa, Asia, and elsewhere—Bangladesh and Rwanda to Nepal and Sri Lanka—are entering the satellite competition, making impressive developments with scarce means. Even small nations are searching for ways to use space technology in both economic and strategic terms.
This democratization has a multifaceted challenge. They call it the “double dual-use dilemma.” It is not only the technology that can be used both for civilian and military applications; the companies themselves are elastic enough to span both spheres. Private space companies in the present era can switch over from commercial launch of satellites to assisting national security operations with ease, operating in sectors that are still lightly regulated.
In the US, national defense is becoming more integrated with private companies. Companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin are in constant collaboration with military organizations, delivering launch services, satellite imagery, and other capabilities that formerly were purely government-controlled.
Capabilities such as high-resolution imaging and satellite communications that are developed under commercial ventures can be adapted for use in defense. Satellite internet constellations, for instance, have been employed to facilitate battlefield communications and drone coordination in wars as a testament to how civilian technology can become strategically significant.
India is another instance of the way in which military and civilian roles can converge rapidly. Firms there, like Walchandnagar Industries, have close relationships with the defense ministry and national research bodies. Technologies first created for civilian space flight have been converted to strategic applications, from rocket launchers to radar networks, obscuring the distinction between exploration and defense. The expertise, know-how, and facilities created in commercial space enterprises increasingly flow into military programs, positioning private companies as prime movers in national defense policy.
The threats are real. Civilian space assets become potential high-value targets for conflict, exposed to cyber attack or physical attack. Dependence on private infrastructure lowers levels of oversight and may lead to misuse or proliferation. Even reusable rockets, developed first for commercial launch, could be repurposed for missile programs with strategic implications hard to follow.
International regulations are not keeping up. Treaties such as the Outer Space Treaty were written in a time when private companies were not present in orbit, and post-launch activities like the sale of imagery or the reuse of technology are hard to track. Governments are now starting to react with plans to monitor and control these activities.
The European Union, for example, has established the Space Surveillance and Tracking network to monitor space assets, and in the United States, the Space Force is striving to incorporate commercial capabilities into national security mechanisms. But clear guidelines and strong oversight are still urgently needed.
The stakes are high. Without good governance, space risks becoming the next frontier for unregulated strategic competition, as experienced in cyberspace. The question is not if commercial space corporations will shape military power, but how quickly the world moves to prevent the ultimate frontier from becoming a battlefield. As private companies innovate ever further, humanity comes to a critical juncture: the next great step in space exploration could as easily become a step toward war as it is a step toward discovery.
