New Delhi/Bengaluru, July 13 -- Anirudh Sharma, chief executive of space startup Digantara, is setting up a satellite manufacturing assembly line at his company's Bengaluru headquarters. It's a bit of a departure from Digantara's original premise of selling 'space situational awareness'-a map for satellites to navigate increasingly crowded orbits.

So, why is a company looking to sell satellite data to clients setting up an assembly line? Sharma says the decision was driven by the increasing interest over approximately the past six months from governments around the world to source their own space defence and surveillance infrastructure.

Once a practically non-existent sector, space-based defence services, led by the demand for surveilla...