The United States and Israel have destroyed two Iranian facilities for military space operations as part of Operation Epic Fury, constraining Tehran’s ability to coordinate attacks and gather information from orbit.
“We’ve … struck Iran’s equivalent of Space Command, which degrades their ability to threaten Americans,” Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, said during a March 5 press briefing. In an attack on March 8, Israeli Defense Forces reportedly destroyed an Iranian base focused on building technologies to destroy adversaries’ satellites. The base had been used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to promote its aerospace efforts, including the deployment of the Khayyam satellite, which was launched by Iran in 2022 using a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Jerusalem Post newspaper reported.
While the conflict has shifted to missile, drone and air attacks, the strikes on Iran’s aerospace facilities highlighted the importance of space systems in modern warfare. Cyber and space operations were among the first actions taken at the start of Operation Epic Fury. Military leaders say these actions disrupted Iran’s ability to communicate, track incoming attacks and coordinate a response before large-scale strikes began.
In a briefing, U.S. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described U.S. cyber and space forces as the campaign’s “first movers,” launching waves of electronic warfare and other non-physical attacks designed to disrupt Iran’s “ability to see, communicate and respond.”
Such operations can include jamming communications, interfering with radar and corrupting digital networks — tactics that can disable military systems without destroying them.
Space-based sensors also have the capability to track missile launches and guide possible military responses. Early warning satellites can detect the intense heat of a missile launch within seconds, allowing air defense systems to prepare for incoming threats. Satellite communications networks can help coordinate forces, while global navigation satellites provide timing and positioning signals used by precision weapons.
At the same time, commercial satellites can reveal the scope of warfare to the outside world. Images captured by private satellite companies, including Planet Labs and Vantor, have shown smoke rising from Iranian military facilities and ships burning at naval bases.
Analysts say Iran’s space program has grown slowly over the past two decades and has remained limited compared with the capabilities of major space powers. Since 2005, Iran has launched 26 satellites, with 13 believed to remain in operation, according to news reports. Three of those spacecraft belong to the IRGC, which established its own space command in 2020.
Even so, experts say Iran’s military space capabilities are relatively modest. “I wouldn’t compare it to our space command, since Iran had virtually no space assets of its own to speak of,” said Todd Harrison, a defense expert who tracks global satellite activity, according to the DefenseOne news site.
Iran appears to have relied more heavily on electronic interference than on advanced anti-satellite weapons. Analysts say Tehran has demonstrated the ability to jam or spoof satellite signals, potentially disrupting communications and GPS receivers, but there is little evidence Iran has developed the ability to destroy satellites on orbit.
“They were not a threat in space capabilities,” Victoria Samson, the Secure World Foundation’s chief director of space security and stability, told DefenseOne. “The threat that they have for counterspace capabilities, they’re great at jamming and spoofing … but, big picture, no.”
That distinction increasingly matters in modern warfare, as military planners rely on satellites for everything from communications and navigation to intelligence gathering and missile warning. Disrupting those systems — through cyber operations, electronic warfare or physical strikes on ground facilities — can have an outsized impact on military operations.