At the beginning of Operation Epic Fury, US Space and Cyber Commands launched a coordinated campaign against Iranian satellite communication and navigation systems. Three days later, General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly admitted what analysts suspected; these commands had been the ‘first movers’. Although space has received less media coverage than the air campaign or the naval dimension, it has enabled multi-domain operations. Broadly, there are four major dimensions which have defined the role of space in this war.
The first dimension is satellite intelligence, particularly the evolution of commercial Earth observation into what analysts call a “glass battlefield.” Accessing satellite