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Iran has a strong arsenal of ballistic missiles, but America's space systems are proving effective in quickly detecting launches and passing on that information, the head of US Space Command said on Tuesday.
At the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Gen Stephen Whiting described Iran’s arsenal as a “very robust ballistic missile force”.
“It's our missile-warning capabilities that are truly unique across the entire planet, where we can detect those launches and provide that information to our fielded forces in real time, and up to our national leaders as well,” Gen Whiting said.
US Space Command was created in 1985 but phased out in 2002. President Donald Trump re-established it during is first term in 2019, along with Space Force, which is a separate branch of the military.
Mr Trump said at the time: “Spacecom will defend America’s vital interests in space – the next war-fighting domain.”
Gen Whiting said the importance of space technology has increased in the years since Spacecom's renewal. He also spoke about how the privatisation of space research has affected geopolitics.
“Even nations that don’t have strong space programmes can go on to the commercial market and get imagery and satellite communications, as well as other forms of intelligence," he said.
Gen Whiting said that despite Iran's limited space capabilities, it is making the most of the enormous amount space data available.
“When a medium-sized power like Iran has the ability to build long-range strike weapons like ballistic missiles or one-way attack drones, and then pair that with the ubiquity of imagery to strike fixed targets, that’s something we’ll have to contend with,” he explained.
Iran has also reportedly used Chinese and Russian satellite imagery to aim at US forces since the war started on February 28.
Gen Whiting said that with satellite imagery now being easy to obtain, militaries have fewer ways to conceal their activities.
“There are not sanctuaries for our forces any more, and we’ve seen that in Iran,” he said.
Cyber attacks on satellites
Cyber attacks against satellite communication companies by countries like Russia have become more common, Gen Whiting said, bolstering the importance of space research and superiority.
“They would rather attack us via cyber because it’s easier for them, cheaper for them and harder for us to attribute,” he said.
Although they are different conflicts, Gen Whiting said that both Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the Iran war illustrate just how important and vulnerable space technology has become.
“We’ve also seen persistent satellite communication and GPS jamming where they have contested our use of those capabilities,” he said.
