Last month, Iran’s Tehran Times posted what appeared to be damning satellite proof: a before-and-after image of “American radar,” supposedly “completely destroyed.”
It wasn’t. The image was an AI-manipulated version of a year-old Google Earth shot from Bahrain—wrong location, wrong timeline, fabricated damage. Open source intelligence researchers debunked it within hours, matching it to older satellite imagery and identifying identical visual artifacts, down to cars frozen in the same positions.
A small act of disinformation, quickly debunked. But it pointed to a challenge that becomes more difficult during active conflict: The satellite infrastructure that journalists, analysts, pilots, and governments rely on to see conflict clearly in the Gulf is itself becoming contested terrain—delayed, spoofed, withheld, or simply controlled by actors whose interests don’t always align with public access.
The escalation follows rising tensions between the US, Israel, and Iran, with missile and drone activity crossing Gulf airspace and regional infrastructure—including satellites and navigation systems—entering into the conflict.
No Longer Neutral Infrastructure
When satellite data becomes unreliable, control over it becomes a central question.
In the Gulf, satellite infrastructure is largely run by state-backed operators. These rely on geostationary satellites—positioned high above the equator—which are used for activities such as broadcasting, communication, and weather forecasting.
In the United Arab Emirates, that includes Space42 for secure communications and Earth observation. Saudi-led Arabsat handles broadcasting and broadband, while Qatar’s Es’hailSat supports regional connectivity. All operate under close government oversight.
Iran is building a parallel system. Its satellites, including Paya (also known as Tolou-3), are part of a broader push to expand surveillance capabilities independently of Western infrastructure. The high-resolution Earth observation satellite was launched from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome.
The market around that infrastructure is growing fast. The Middle East satellite communications sector is valued at more than $4 billion and projected to reach $5.64 billion by 2031, according to one estimate, driven largely by airborne connectivity linked to both commercial aviation and defense demand. Maritime platforms already account for nearly a third of regional revenue.
Access Is the New Bottleneck
Commercial low-Earth orbit fleets like Planet Labs and Maxar operate differently from government-owned systems—and access is the main constraint. Governments receive priority tasking, while newsrooms and NGOs rely on paid subscriptions.
On March 11, Planet Labs announced it would extend delays on imagery of the Middle East by two weeks. The company denied the decision came from any government request, stating instead that it was to “ensure our imagery is not tactically leveraged by adversarial actors to target allied and NATO-partner personnel and civilians.”
Maryam Ishani Thompson, an open source intelligence reporter, tells WIRED Middle East that “the loss of Planet Labs is so harsh because we were getting a fast refresh rate. Even if we turn to Chinese satellites, we don’t get that speed.”