The battle for control of information has been a major part of conflict since the technology revolution of the late 20th century. Behind the modern front lines of propaganda, censorship and social media, another contest is unfolding in Earth's orbit.
For decades, US satellite companies such as Planet Labs and Vantor – formerly Maxar Technologies – have provided much of the commercial world's eye on warzones, environmental damage and humanitarian crises.
Their high-resolution imagery has become essential for journalists, researchers, aid groups and military analysts seeking to understand what is happening on the ground. From tracking troop movements to documenting bomb damage and exposing mass destruction, commercial satellite images have transformed reporting and open-source intelligence.
The US has long dominated this market, not only through technological leadership but through privileged access to launch capacity, capital and regulatory control. In practice, it has held a near-monopoly over much of the world’s most detailed commercially available imagery.
The Iran war, however, appears to have exposed the limits of that dominance.
Planet Labs expanded a delay on Middle East imagery from four days to 14 days in March 2026, saying it was intended to prevent US adversaries from using the data against America and its allies.
It later moved to withhold recent imagery of Iran and surrounding conflict areas, according to company notices.
Vantor also introduced tighter controls over imagery from parts of the Middle East. The company said it was seeking to prevent sensitive geospatial data from being used in ways that could endanger the US or its allies.
While these companies are businesses with commercial priorities, they do not operate in a political vacuum. US remote-sensing companies are licensed under federal rules that allow Washington to limit the collection or distribution of imagery when national security or foreign policy concerns are at stake.
The US does not need to own every image to dictate who sees it. It only needs influence over companies through licences and legal frameworks that determine access.
Planet Labs' reach shows why this matters. The company says its fleet of roughly 200 Earth-imaging satellites can shoot the world’s land mass daily. For journalists and investigators, that kind of access has become central to documenting war damage, troop movements and humanitarian crises.
But once access narrowed, users started looking elsewhere. European providers such as Airbus Defence and Space and the European Space Agency have become more attractive because they are not bound by US wartime restrictions in the same way.
Chinese satellite companies have also become harder to ignore. China now operates a rapidly expanding Earth-observation sector, with companies such as MizarViision and Chang Guang Satellite Technology building one of the world’s largest non-US commercial imaging constellations.
Adrian Norris, an aerospace industry analyst and Partner at Alpha2 Consulting, which has offices in the UK and France, told The National that “America still has a dominant lead in dedicated military imaging satellites (operated by the National Reconnaissance Office), but commercial Earth observation is now widely distributed.
"Years ago, China had no domestic commercial high-resolution imaging satellites. Today, it has built a commercial imaging capability that allows any point on Earth to be imaged multiple times each day at high resolution”
However, Mr Norris predicts that five years from now nobody will have complete control over commercial views from space.
“That is the most consequential shift. Twenty years ago, the United States controlled it. Ten years ago, it was the US and Europe. Both retain advantages in resolution, analytics and – particularly – trusted supply chains for allied governments. But China can increasingly match them, and many other countries have meaningful capabilities.”
That shift is precisely what worries Washington. A leaked State Department memo reportedly warned allies against relying on Chinese satellite services, arguing that such reliance could expose sensitive information to Beijing.
The Iran war has, therefore, revealed a contradiction at the heart of open-source intelligence: the data may be commercial, but access is still political.
For journalists and researchers, the lesson is clear. Dependence on a single country’s commercial satellite ecosystem carries political risk. But American control may not last forever.
More than 1,000 new satellites are expected to join the 12,000-plus in Earth-observation networks in the coming years, launched by companies and governments across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. As competition grows, access to imagery is likely to become more widespread, more contested and harder for any one power to control.
The Iran war may come to be remembered not only as a military confrontation, but as the moment the world realised America no longer has an uncontested grip on the view from space.
