How commercial satellites are defining modern warfare
07:37 Share

If your job at a healthcare facility includes disinfecting against viruses, you know prevention is the best medicine. And maintaining healthy spaces starts with a healthy cleaning routine. Grainger's world-class supply chain helps ensure you have the quality products you need when you need them. From disinfectants and cleaning supplies to personal protective equipment, so you can help deliver a clean bill of health. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, clickgrainger.com, or just stop by.

Granger, for the ones who get it done. Commercial satellite photos are helping define modern warfare. For American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Novosafo. Over the last several days, you may have seen the latest examples of a growing phenomenon, satellite images of a conflict zone. This time, they were of Iranian nuclear sites before and after American bombs struck.

The images come from commercial satellite companies, a change from our past reliance on government-provided photographs. That change gained steam with Russia's war in Ukraine, according to Mariel Borowitz. She's an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and specializes in space policy and the satellite industry.

With the Ukraine war, we saw a situation where Russia has many of these types of reconnaissance satellites, high resolution imagery satellites. And Ukraine really just had a handful of satellites. And they were able to leverage the commercial remote sensing sector to arguably have even better capabilities than Russia and to really have that imagery to monitor what was happening and have that level of awareness.

And how were the capabilities potentially better than what Russia has? So just the number of companies that exist in the U.S. and Europe that are offering different types of capabilities. So, for example, you know, we've had for a long time satellite companies that offer what they call high resolution imagery. So you can see things very precisely on the ground down to, you know, six inches to a foot. So really, really,

really great for seeing lots of detail, understanding if there are movements of troops, looking at potential targeting or determining how much damage has occurred. But we also have commercial satellites now that are operating large constellations of satellites. And that means you can revisit the same location on the ground every few hours even. And so now you can see changes very quickly. You can...

be watching a site, not persistently, not constantly like a video, but quite frequently. And then you have companies that are operating radar satellites. So you can see through clouds, you can see at night, and again, getting that frequent revisit rate. And who are these commercial satellite operators? Where did they come from?

Sure. So a lot of them are based in the U.S. and some have heritage going all the way back to that because of sort of 1980s, 1990s time period, particularly these high resolution imagery satellites sort of started back then and those companies have continued.

But the last maybe 10 or 15 years, we saw this wave of new companies. So Planet is one of those that had this idea. Planet Labs. Yeah, exactly. Planet Labs to have a large constellation of satellites that would allow you to do this quick revisit and look at anywhere in the globe, you know, once a day or even more frequently. And then companies like Umbra or Capella that do synthetic aperture radar. So letting you see through clouds and at night.

There are even companies that monitor radio spectrum so they can actually see when jamming is happening. You know, these kind of interesting different capabilities that with satellites, you can just travel over any part of the globe. So you have access to information that you just can't get any other way. And you think...

Business for these companies is poised to grow. I think so, and for a number of reasons. I mean, certainly this has demonstrated the value of this data for security purposes. I mean, already in the United States, typically the military was the largest customer for a lot of these companies. But now I think you see these international sales as well.

But then, you know, I think because we see the images in the public and there's growing awareness of the capabilities of some of these satellites, there's an ability to get outside of that military market as well. And there's a lot of potential applications for environmental uses, for shipping, for fishing, for all these different areas where I think they're just starting to tap into those markets. So I think those will grow as well. We'll be right back.

For the ones who get it done, the most important part is the one you need now. And the best partner is the one who can deliver. That's why millions of maintenance and repair pros trust Grainger. Because we have professional-grade supplies for every industry, even hard-to-find products. And we have same-day pickup and next-day delivery on most orders. But most importantly, we have an unwavering commitment to help keep you up and running. Call, click Grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger. For the ones who get it done.

You're listening to Marketplace Tech. I'm Novosafo. We're back with Mariel Borowitz, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who's been tracking the growing use of commercial satellite images in warfare. Within the context of how they're mostly used now with militaries and governments, these commercial satellite images have turned out to be a really useful media tool, haven't they?

Yeah, absolutely. I think the ability to provide that information, you know, not just for military use, but for that public information, public awareness, I think is another thing that's really unlocked by these commercial satellites. Because if you only are using, you know, the very high capabilities of reconnaissance satellites, you're

That information is useful to militaries, but it's classified. So it can't be shared. You can't demonstrate to the public the reality of what's happening. And with these commercial satellites, you really can. So either news organizations or others, nonprofits sometimes buy that data directly to use it. And other times you'll see governments actually purchase the data and then allow it to be made openly available with the idea that it can be accessed by news media and others.

And yet there's still some limitations, I think, that are worth pointing out because, for example, with the nuclear site photos that we got on Iran, it's really hard to tell actually what's going on. You know, you have to have folks circling, look over here and here's the before and after and look at that tiny bit of difference. Are those limitations lifelike?

likely to go away? I mean, are we just going to see an arms race of improving quality? Yeah, I think you're right. And this is something else that the industry is really working on because the satellite data is just the start. And, you know, the imagery that you're describing is the most straightforward image

type of satellite data to work with. And even then, like you're saying, it's really a specific skill set and somewhat of an art to really analyze these images and understand what are the important things, what am I really seeing here? And you can imagine now, if you also think about radar data or analyzing these, you know,

parts of the radio spectrum, it gets much more complicated. And so I think there is this race between the companies themselves trying to think about how do we make these into products that are more directly useful for people? And then also the, you know, some of these

Other value added companies that are trying to say, OK, we'll buy the data and we'll turn it into products. And then, of course, you know, as a professor, I also see students, you know, as part of their regular education will now sometimes get geospatial training. And so there's also an increase in the ability of people's chances to use this data and be able to work with it.

So it's creating an entire new sector in a sense. Yeah, I think so. So, you know, there's just a huge volume of this data. And, you know, in addition to the commercial data, there's NASA provides all sorts of Earth observation data. The European Space Agency does typically at a lower resolution, but that data is often free. So, yeah, there's a whole wide group of people, I think, thinking through what are all the applications of this type of data. That was Professor Mariel Borowitz at Georgia Tech.

Daniel Shin produced this episode. I'm Nova Soffo, and that's Marketplace Tech. This is APM. This Old House has been America's most trusted source for all things DIY and home improvement for decades. And now we're on the radio and on demand. I think you're breaking into this wall regardless. I was hoping you wouldn't say that. I need to go and get some whiskey, I think. I would get the whiskey for sure. Subscribe to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist Studios, wherever you get your podcasts.