Intro: This is not the first 'satellite war' by any means - that title was given to the Gulf War three decades ago - but reliance on commercial satellites in Ukraine is raising concerns about the power they give to the companies that control them, and also the risk of satellite companies being dragged into the conflict.

In the sky above Ukraine right now are around 50 working satellites, estimates Todd Humphreys, a professor at the University of Texas. Those satellites have become a key part of Ukraine’s efforts to fend off a Russian invasion. The government there has been pleading for satellite images for clues of where Russian troops might move next.

High Above Ukraine, Satellites Get Embroiled in the War

While the Russian invasion rages on the ground, companies that operate data-collecting satellites find themselves in an awkward position.

<div class=__reading__mode__extracted__imagecaption>Courtesy of Capella Space

Morgan Maker
Morgan Meaker is a senior writer at WIRED covering European business. Before that, she was a technology reporter at The Telegraph and also worked for Dutch magazine De Correspondent. In 2019 she won Technology Journalist of the Year at the Words by Women Awards.

She was born in Scotland, lives... Read more

Wired

"The traffic jam stretched from the Russian city of Belgorod to the Ukrainian border. Google Maps marked the congestion with red and orange, just as it does in all countries where the app is used to track traffic. But the GPS satellites sending these vehicles’ positions to Google were not picking up an ordinary traffic jam. This was 40 kilometers of traffic caused by Russian troops.

That convoy turned out to be an early warning that the Russian troops amassed on Ukraine’s borders were on the move. It was first noticed at 3:15 am on Thursday of last week by Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS), a graduate school in California—hours before reports of Ukraine’s first explosions filtered into the news. But he did not stumble on it by accident. Lewis had a tip-off from a radar image taken by a commercial satellite company called Capella Space, which showed Russian troops lined up along the road in columns near Belgorod. “When the Russians are camping for a long time they park their tanks in a square and they put up tents,” says Lewis.

But this satellite image showed troops in a very different formation. There were no tents; they were ready to move. When one of Lewis’ colleagues started searching for the routes this column might take to move toward Ukraine, he found the traffic jam. “It's really a story about fusing different kinds of data,” says Lewis.

Then, on February 28, Google said it would temporarily turn off live traffic updates in Ukraine “after consulting with multiple sources on the ground, including local authorities.” Google did not elaborate on why it was worried about the feature. But researchers speculate the company is concerned that traffic data revealing the location of troops or refugees could be used to inform military strikes. “You can understand why Google would not want to be a party to providing targeting data in an international conflict,” says Lewis.

[. ]

At this time of year, Ukraine’s skies are carpeted with clouds. Companies are now in high demand if they can produce a type of data called radar, which works at night and can see through clouds. Radar images are generated by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites, which map the world in a way that’s similar to how bats navigate in the dark—by sending out radio waves and measuring how their signals are reflected back. To carry out their work, open source researchers like Lewis buy radar data from companies like Capella and Planet, both based in San Francisco. They also have to pay for a software, such as ENVI, to interpret that radar data and turn it into images. His team’s ability to use this software is a result of years of training, he adds. “Three years ago we would not have been able to do this.”

Open source researchers are not the only ones demanding this data. Militaries want it too. "We badly need the opportunity to watch the movement of Russian troops, especially at night when our technologies are blind,” Ukraine’s vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on March 1. In a letter posted on Twitter, Fedorov called on eight commercial satellite companies to send SAR satellite data to help Ukraine’s Armed Forces see Russian troop movements through clouds. One of the companies to respond was Capella. Its founder and CEO, Payam Banazadeh, says the company is providing satellite imagery of Ukraine to both the Ukrainian and US governments.

“We have capabilities that governments don't have,” says Banazadeh. He shrugs off questions about staying neutral in a conflict. “We're a private commercial company and anyone can—as long as we have imagery available—purchase imagery from us,” he says. “But beyond that, we're an American company and we’re not playing politics or policy. We've built a commercial capability that really anyone in the world can have access to.”

But some researchers are worried that the reliance on satellite imagery has given too much power to the companies that control this technology. . .The role of private companies in conflicts such as Ukraine means commercial satellites could become targets. In the days before Russia invaded, US space officials warned satellite companies that the conflict could extend into space. “Ensure that your systems are secure and that you’re watching them very closely because we know that the Russians are effective cyber actors,” said National Reconnaissance Office director Chris Scolese at a National Security Space Association conference on February 23. “It’s hard to say how far their reach is going to go in order to achieve their objectives, but it’s better to be prepared than surprised.”

...Those attacks could take the form of cyber attacks or spoofing, when a radio transmitter is used to fake a GPS signal. Russia has been one of the few countries to demonstrate its spoofing capabilities in the open. . .

> But Russia has not only been tricking satellites to bolster its defenses, it has also practiced blowing them up. In November, the country carried out a missile test on one of its own satellites, raising the possibility that satellites could eventually become physical targets. Capella’s Banazadeh does not believe his company is facing an imminent threat as a result of its involvement in Ukraine. “Is it something that is keeping us up at night? No,” he says. “Is it something that we're aware of and we've made sure that the company and the satellites are protected? Yes.”

> Another company that could become a target for attacks is Elon Musk’s Starlink, which delivered terminals to Ukraine with the idea that they can provide a backup internet connection if the country’s network infrastructure is damaged by fighting. However, businesses are unlikely to announce publicly if their satellites have been spoofed or jammed, says Rainer Horn, managing partner of German consultancy SpaceTec Partners, adding that he has not heard about any recent attacks. . ."

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06 March 2022

PROVIDING TARGETS IN INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS: Satellite Image Companies...Threat Actors vs Threat Actors

High Above Ukraine, Satellites Get Embroiled in the War

While the Russian invasion rages on the ground, companies that operate data-collecting satellites find themselves in an awkward position.

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