The Commercial Satellite Revolution is Changing Warfare — Here’s How America Can Stay Ahead

It is well known that drones are helping Iran wage asymmetric warfare against a superior opponent — yet less visibly, but just as importantly, satellites are playing the same role. On July 27, Iranian lawmaker Ahmad Ardestani said, “it is natural for China and Russia to say they do not help Iran, but in reality, they do … their satellites help us.” In today’s world, though, it is no longer just state actors that are active in space. Commercial space efforts are advancing globally, often to America’s detriment.

Throughout the Iran war, commercial space has played a key — and troubling — role. Chinese commercial firms have, on a regular basis, publicly posted high-resolution, close-up satellite imagery of U.S. military platforms at Middle East bases for American adversaries to see and use. The good news is that the United States has ample opportunities to better leverage its own commercial space advances, and those of its allies and partners, to strengthen U.S. national security as the space race heats up.

For decades, military advantage in space depended almost entirely on government-owned satellites and national intelligence organizations. The high cost of launching spacecraft, developing sophisticated sensors, and maintaining global satellite networks meant that only major global powers could exploit space for military purposes.

Commercial space has altered that equation, fundamentally changing how wars are fought and how military power is projected. Put simply, the government monopoly on space has disappeared, increasingly shifting key military space capabilities from exclusive government control to the private sector. Defense planners will have to grapple with this evolution. Future conflicts will likely be shaped by commercially-owned satellite constellations that provide communications, intelligence, and data services to governments worldwide.

One of the most significant developments is the rapid growth of commercial satellite imagery. U.S. companies such as Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs operate constellations of high-resolution Earth observation satellites capable of producing imagery with refresh rates rivaling many government systems. Intelligence that once required access to classified national systems is increasingly available through commercial providers.

Another revolutionary capability comes from commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems, which, unlike conventional optical satellites, generate high-resolution imagery regardless of cloud cover, smoke, or darkness. This capability reduces one of the traditional limitations of space-based reconnaissance. American and European companies like Capella Space and ICEYE now provide persistent, all-weather surveillance of adversary military activity around the clock.

Commercial space-based communications have become equally transformative. SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation has demonstrated that resilient satellite communications no longer require dedicated military networks. By providing broadband connectivity through thousands of low Earth orbit satellites, Starlink has maintained communications in contested environments where traditional terrestrial infrastructure was damaged or destroyed. Military forces have used commercial connectivity for command and control, intelligence sharing, logistics coordination, and unmanned system operations. The resilience created by thousands of distributed satellites also makes such constellations significantly more difficult to disable than traditional military communication satellites.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has further accelerated the military value of commercial space systems.  Modern satellite constellations generate enormous quantities of imagery and sensor data that would overwhelm human analysts. AI-enabled analytics platforms automatically identify vehicles, aircraft, ships, missile launchers, construction activity, and changes in terrain within minutes of image collection.  Rather than replacing analysts, AI enables them to process vastly greater amounts of information and rapidly identify militarily significant changes. The result is dramatically faster intelligence production and decision-making, compressing the observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loop that underpins modern military operations.

With America’s partners — chiefly the European Union, India, South Korea, and Israel — also making advances in AI-satellite fusion, there are significant opportunities for the Pentagon to leverage. For example, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has already made strides in integrating pattern-detection AI with a range of satellite platforms. In recent years, roughly 50 different Israeli startups have entered the space sector as well, many of which are also developing AI capabilities for satellites.

The convergence of commercial satellite imagery, resilient communications, SAR space platforms, and AI-enabled analysis demonstrates a fundamental shift in military space power that the United States should work to harness. U.S. military effectiveness increasingly depends upon leveraging commercial providers whose technologies often evolve faster than traditional government acquisition programs.

This transformation creates both opportunities and challenges. The U.S. government needs to seize the former and overcome the latter.

The main challenge to overcome is an old way of thinking, and the old way of Department of War procurement. While the United States once accounted for roughly 90 percent of all satellites launched, it now accounts for less than half — a reflection not of American decline, but of a commercial space sector that has changed the economics and tempo of spaceflight. SpaceX can put dozens of satellites into orbit in a single launch, and the company views rockets like commercial airplanes: “reusable, serviceable, fly-again machines.” Instead of discarding hardware after a single flight, the company treats space travel as a mode of transportation that requires rapid repeatability and full reusability to lower costs. By contrast, the Pentagon still favors “gold Cadillacs into the sky” — bespoke decade-long programs that produce extraordinarily capable, but highly vulnerable, satellites.

Kickstarting an alternative to the slow-moving Pentagon acquisition process should undergird U.S. space policy. First, the Pentagon should streamline how commercial actors win contracts, lowering barriers to entry so innovative firms are not dissuaded from trying in the first place. Second, acquisition timelines must be compressed to match the pace at which commercial industry can already deliver. Third, the United States needs better integration — including aligning standards and improving command-and-control linkages — of commercial platforms into the military’s space efforts. Fourth, Washington should leverage the private, and public, sector capabilities of partners already active in space — like Israel, India, South Korea, and the United Kingdom — whose satellite advances can be utilized to the American military’s advantage.

The proliferation of low-cost launch, small satellites, and commercial remote sensing has handed the United States a strategic opportunity — but one also afforded to its adversaries. The new space race is on.