Iran possesses its own space capabilities, although these remain limited in scale. However, it is well established that the country has benefited from external space support from its allies, particularly Russia^[1] and China^[2]. Furthermore, according to the Financial Times^[3], an Earth-observation satellite known as TEE-01B, manufactured and launched by China in June 2024, was reportedly transferred to the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) several months after launch. According to the investigation, the IRGC would therefore have been able to task the satellite and access its imagery through Chinese commercial ground stations. China has denied these allegations. At first glance, such support would not be particularly surprising given the cordial diplomatic relations between the two countries. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that China now possesses a range of optical imaging capabilities, both in terms of quantity and performance, potentially capable of supporting targeting missions.

The growing importance of satellite imagery reflects a broader transformation of the Earth-observation sector over the past decade. Historically, high-resolution geospatial intelligence was largely the preserve of governments and intelligence agencies, with access to imagery tightly controlled and often classified. Today, a rapidly expanding commercial ecosystem has fundamentally altered this landscape. Companies such as Planet Labs, VANTOR (formerly MAXAR Technologies), Airbus Defence and Space, ICEYE, Capella Space, BlackSky and others operate constellations capable of providing increasingly frequent global coverage, in some cases revisiting the same location multiple times per day. Driven by lower launch costs, advances in small satellite technologies, cloud-based data distribution, and artificial intelligence, commercial capabilities have expanded at a pace that often exceeds traditional government acquisition cycles.

This transformation extends beyond Earth observation. The widespread use of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation during the war in Ukraine demonstrated how commercial space infrastructure can rapidly become critical to military operations, government continuity, and civilian communications. Together, these developments illustrate how capabilities once associated almost exclusively with governments are increasingly being delivered by commercial operators at global scale.

As a result, governments themselves increasingly rely on commercial providers to supplement national capabilities, while the same technologies are becoming accessible to a far broader range of actors than was previously possible.

What appears to have been more problematic for the United States and its allies, however, was the possibility that Iran may have been able to rely on commercially available Western space support for targeting operations^[4], particularly given that such data are not classified by nature. In practice, during the conflict involving Iran, American commercial actors themselves introduced restrictions following a CNN report^[5] in which journalists claimed that, after one week of hostilities, Iran had targeted nine American military positions in less than forty-eight hours. Their reporting relied on satellite imagery provided by VANTOR and Planet Labs.

Planet Labs initially decided to impose a delay of 96 hours^[6] and subsequently 14 days before delivering imagery covering Iran, the Persian Gulf, American military bases, and “existing conflict zones”. The company stated that this decision had been taken on its own initiative. Planet Labs later moved to a system of managed distribution, releasing imagery on a case-by-case basis for urgent, mission-critical requirements or in the public interest.

VANTOR also introduced controls on all new satellite imagery requests. The United States already possesses an existing regulatory framework, notably through licensing systems and shutter control mechanisms, although this framework is likely to evolve further in the coming years. Given the growing strategic significance of commercial geospatial intelligence, further evolution of licensing, access-control and dissemination frameworks should be expected across multiple jurisdictions^[8].

The issue of dissemination becomes more complex with the existence of companies operating as genuine “image banks.” These firms source imagery from multiple commercial operators, which can make attempts to control distribution considerably more difficult. As a result, the Chinese company MizarVision^[9] was reportedly able to publish several images showing American military preparations in Jordan and the Persian Gulf before the strikes of 28 February. Although the precise origin of these images remains unclear, analysts believe that some display characteristics associated with imagery from Western commercial providers^[10].

More broadly, the strategic significance of commercial geospatial intelligence extends well beyond individual satellite images. Modern Earth observation increasingly relies on constellations of optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites capable of providing frequent revisit rates and, in the case of SAR, all-weather, day-and-night imaging. Combined with advances in artificial intelligence, these capabilities enable the automated detection, classification, and tracking of military assets, infrastructure, logistics movements, and changes in activity across large geographic areas. Rather than relying on a single image, users can increasingly access a near-continuous stream of observations that can be fused, analysed, and acted upon in near real time.

The rapid expansion of commercial Earth-observation capabilities means that what was once the exclusive domain of national intelligence agencies is increasingly available through the commercial marketplace, often with update cycles, revisit rates, and analytical tools that continue to improve year-on-year. While the full extent of the information available to actors in the conflict remains unknown, the demonstrated accuracy and responsiveness of modern military operations underscore a broader reality: commercially available space capabilities, coupled with AI-enabled analytics, are narrowing the gap between traditional state intelligence functions and services available through the commercial marketplace.

GPS disruption has also become another defining characteristic of recent conflicts, and the war involving Iran is no exception. Jamming and spoofing have become routine occurrences whose consequences for civilian activities can be severe. Jamming disrupts a vehicle’s satellite-based positioning capabilities, while spoofing causes navigation systems to report false locations.

A wide range of economic activities depend on GPS synchronisation, which provides not only positioning capabilities from space but also highly precise timing information. Numerous systems, including financial transactions, rely on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) as an extremely precise time reference.

Over the Strait of Hormuz, electromagnetic interference creates significant risks for maritime safety and navigation by increasing the likelihood of collisions between vessels. However, such interference has become a recurring feature of contemporary conflicts, in order to counter GPS-guided missiles and drones used by their adversaries^[11].

During periods of heightened tension in the Gulf, widespread GPS interference in and around the Strait of Hormuz has caused commercial vessels to report false positions, with some ships appearing to be located on land, at airports, or many kilometres from their actual location. While such measures are often intended to degrade the effectiveness of GPS-guided drones, missiles and other autonomous systems, they can simultaneously affect civilian shipping, logistics and maritime safety. This illustrates how tools once confined to the military domain are increasingly generating economic and operational consequences across the wider commercial ecosystem, with effects extending to the navigation services relied upon by millions of civilian users.

Consequently, the proliferation of GNSS jamming and spoofing is accelerating demand for alternative positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities that can operate in degraded or denied environments. As military and commercial operators become increasingly exposed to GPS disruption, a growing ecosystem of companies is emerging to address this vulnerability. Firms such as Rhea Space Activity are developing GPS-independent navigation solutions designed to enable spacecraft and autonomous systems to determine their position without relying exclusively on satellite navigation signals. What was once viewed as a niche defence requirement is increasingly becoming a commercial and strategic necessity.

At the same time, governments are increasingly investing in alternative and complementary PNT architectures to reduce dependence on GPS alone. Beyond the United States’ GPS constellation, operators today can access other global systems including Europe’s Galileo, China’s BeiDou and Russia’s GLONASS, while a growing number of regional and commercial initiatives are exploring terrestrial PNT networks, low-Earth orbit navigation services, and hybrid navigation architectures. The objective is to create greater redundancy and resilience in environments where satellite navigation signals may be degraded, denied, or manipulated.

The rapid expansion of large commercial constellations has further accelerated this trend. In particular, SpaceX has stated to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that its Starlink constellation is capable of supporting positioning, navigation and timing services^[12]. Because Starlink satellites operate in low Earth orbit, their signals are significantly stronger than traditional GNSS signals and therefore potentially more resilient to jamming and interference. The constellation’s scale, frequency diversity, beam-forming capabilities, and ability to rapidly update software across thousands of satellites have demonstrated how commercial operators can adapt to electronic warfare threats at a pace often difficult to replicate through traditional government acquisition cycles.

More broadly, the conflict highlights how modern warfare is driving innovation far beyond the traditional defence industrial base. Just as cyberattacks accelerated investment in cybersecurity, persistent GNSS disruption is creating demand for resilient navigation, timing and autonomy technologies across both government and commercial markets. In doing so, the conflict is helping shape and clearly accelerating the development of the next generation of infrastructure that will underpin military operations, transportation networks, autonomous systems and critical digital services.

This conflict also highlights the vulnerability of critical infrastructure. Ground-based space infrastructure has, for example, become a target of military operations. The Israeli military announced that it had struck the command-and-control centre of the Iranian Earth-observation satellite Kayyam, arguing that it constituted a threat to Israel and regional states^[13]. Similarly, at least five American satellite communication terminals were reportedly targeted across the region^[14], although Iranian strikes primarily focused on U.S. missile defence radar systems^[15]. The attacks against satellite communication terminals aimed to isolate American bases from the outside world.

Beyond individual military installations, the reported targeting of radar and communications systems across Qatar, the UAE and other Gulf states illustrates how regional missile-defence and early-warning networks have themselves become strategic targets. Regardless of the accuracy of individual claims, the broader lesson is clear: modern military effectiveness increasingly depends upon interconnected networks of sensors, communications links, satellites and data-processing infrastructure, making the wider information architecture itself a potential target during conflict. These systems derive much of their strategic value not from their individual capabilities, but from the role they play within the wider network that enables military operations. Their targeting reflects the extent to which contemporary conflicts increasingly focus on disrupting the information architecture that underpins military power.

Ground space infrastructure is not the only “new” category of target emerging from this conflict. The targeting of commercial data centres has also attracted considerable attention. International reporting, including statements^[16] by Amazon Web Services (AWS), indicated that facilities in the UAE and Bahrain sustained damage during the conflict, resulting in disruptions to cloud services, while data centre infrastructure operated by Oracle was also reportedly targeted. Regardless of the precise circumstances of individual incidents, the episode highlighted the growing strategic importance of commercial digital infrastructure during periods of geopolitical tension. Iranian authorities appear to have fully recognised that these infrastructures have become critical assets for many powers that increasingly regard artificial intelligence, both in its civilian and military applications, as a strategic and financial resource. Data centres have become essential pillars of the economic diversification strategies pursued by several Gulf states, particularly the UAE.

This dynamic was further underscored by reports that Iranian officials had threatened to target the planned OpenAI Stargate UAE data centre, a project forming part of a multi-billion-dollar effort to establish one of the world’s largest AI computing hubs in Abu Dhabi. The threat highlighted the extent to which advanced computing infrastructure is increasingly being viewed through a strategic and national security lens, alongside more traditional military and critical infrastructure targets.

Although the conflict appears to be entering a less acute phase, the underlying observation remains relevant: advanced computing infrastructure is increasingly becoming a matter of strategic competition and national security, rather than solely a commercial concern.

Energy infrastructure has similarly emerged as a central target category during the conflict. Oil refineries, gas processing facilities, fuel depots, export terminals and associated logistics infrastructure have all been subjected to strikes across multiple countries in the region. Israeli attacks on Iran’s South Pars gas field and associated energy facilities were followed by Iranian threats and retaliatory actions targeting energy infrastructure in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, including assets linked to LNG production and oil exports. The conflict demonstrated the extent to which energy systems are increasingly viewed not only as economic assets, but as strategic infrastructure capable of generating significant geopolitical, financial and operational effects far beyond the immediate battlespace. The targeting of such facilities contributed to volatility in global energy markets, renewed concerns over energy security, and heightened risks to critical supply chains dependent on Gulf energy exports.

Additional protective measures for these large and vulnerable strategic sites can therefore be expected, as they increasingly appear to be regarded as legitimate targets during wartime. Indeed, the UAE has reportedly begun implementing additional physical protective structures around key energy infrastructure assets in response to the growing threat posed by drones and precision-guided munitions, reflecting a broader shift towards infrastructure hardening and resilience in high-risk operating environments^[18]. However, resilience is unlikely to be achieved through hardening alone. The growing vulnerability of concentrated infrastructure may also accelerate investment in distributed energy systems, microgrids, and localized generation capabilities, reducing single points of failure and enabling critical services to continue operating even when central infrastructure is degraded or disrupted.

In the future, an increasing range of infrastructures that are not inherently military, but that underpin strategic national capabilities could become targets in the context of armed conflict. The conflict demonstrated that energy facilities, communications networks, data centres, AI computing infrastructure and other critical economic assets are increasingly being viewed through a strategic and national security lens. Besides, according to the Financial Times^[19], these kinds of attacks have a potential financial consequence: the perception of risk may evolve among investors, insurers, and technology companies seeking to develop projects in the region.