Who's Watching You? The Elusive Role of Spy Satellites and their Commercial Counterparts

Photo by the US Air Force (now Space Force) in Wikimedia Commons

James who? The spies of the modern age no longer wear tuxes and drink martinis; their lifestyle is far less glamorous. In the cold darkness of space – specifically Earth’s orbit – spying is done by mysterious machines that spend their days photographing Earth’s surface, imaging it through radar, and listening in on the millions of signals transmitted by the planet’s inhabitants. Satellites have proven themselves invaluable to governments around the world, with one country ahead of the game; of the around 5,500 operational satellites currently in orbit, roughly 63% belong to the US – with over 400 serving a reconnaissance or military purpose.

The vast majority of the 5,000, though, are commercial; they provide anything from television to GPS to internet (such as Starlink, its constellation now consisting of over 3,000 satellites), and dictate much of our modern lifestyle. But satellites’ innate talent for spying has caught the attention of a selection of commercial companies, too; depending on who you pay, in-orbit satellites will snap sharp, up-to-date pictures of areas of your choice, or even open their ears to radio wave transmissions such as that from cellphones. The intelligence game, therefore, is changing; what was once elite technology available to only the most secretive of spooks is now much less elusive. Intelligence agencies – especially those of the US – are now partnering with such companies to expand their reach, which begs the question of who is actually in charge of the resulting mass of information.

Spy satellites are, by nature, shrouded in mystery; in the US, the latest declassified information on them you can get is mostly from around the early 1970s. The earliest spy satellites, such as the US’s CORONA program starting in 1959, captured images using a panoramic camera and film roll. The film was then returned to Earth by means of ‘film buckets’: small vehicles equipped with their own little solid fuel motors for reentry. These were then caught by specialized aircraft or landed in the ocean, where a slowly dissolving salt plug would cause the capsule to sink lest it was grabbed by a rival nation. This image retrieval method was used by different satellite programs up until about 1976 with the launch of the KH-11 Kennen satellite: the first to use digital imaging as well as a relay satellite – the Satellite Data System – to ensure faster downlink and turnaround time.

KH-11s, which are still at large today, operate under the National Reconnaissance Office, or NRO, an agency in charge of orbital intelligence; though this secretive group was established in 1961, its existence was only declassified 31 years later. Information about its projects is kept under strict lock and key, but in the hands – or tweets – of certain presidents, it found a way out. In 2019, President Trump nonchalantly took a photo of a launch facility in Iran and tweeted it; you can even see his shadow on the image. In true Internet fashion, it didn’t take long for sleuths to uncover exactly which satellite must have taken the image – a Block 4.2 KH-11 launched in 2011 – which exposed to the world the level of detail these satellites are able to capture: up to 10 centimeters (meaning its capabilities are not unlike the Hubble space telescope, but it is pointed at Earth, not away from it). Not bad for a satellite in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

The NRO aren’t the only one launching satellites; the US military uses them for anything from intelligence to communications, with control of the machines recently transferred to the relatively new Space Force. There were – and are – too many types and subtypes of these satellites to list here; besides, apart from some leaky tweets, the details are all classified anyway. Their uses, however, can be inferred. One major source of intelligence with which satellites can help is known as GEOINT, or geospatial intelligence; it is important enough that the US has its own agency for it. Essentially, GEOINT is exactly what it sounds like: intelligence based on imagery of the ground (such as troop movements), infrared (such as the Space Force’s SBIRS), radar (such as the Lacrosse satellites), and could even include information reported by agents on the ground. It works to paint a picture of happenings on the ground, and space is a perfect vantage point.

Another vein of intelligence where satellites come in handy is known as SIGINT, or Signals Intelligence. It involves intercepting and analyzing signals from just about anyone, be it people using electronics to communicate with each other (Communications Intelligence – COMINT) or electronics emitting signals on their own (Electronics Intelligence - ELINT). Since radio waves are used for anything from cellphones to wireless networks, satellites such as the NRO’s Orion series can collect radio signals from a variety of sources, such as the billions of cellphones in use today. The tricky part, therefore, is identifying who to listen to.

A SIGINT satellite’s function is largely dependent on its orbit; in LEO, which ranges from about 200 to 2,000 kilometers above Earth’s surface, satellites are much closer to a source, meaning a satellite can better listen in to low power and directional transmissions. But its proximity means it has a smaller portion of Earth in its ‘field of vision’, and it orbits quicker, meaning it has less time to download signals of different bandwidths and pass them along. LEO isn’t the only option; geosynchronous orbit (GEO) – at a distance of about 36,000 kilometers above Earth – allows the satellite to orbit at a speed at which it stays perfectly poised over one specific point on Earth all day long. This allows for continuous information exchange between a source, the satellite, and a ground station, but also means that signals are significantly weaker; as a result, satellites at this distance are often monsters with enormous antennae (the Orion satellite USA-223 is believed to be the biggest spy satellite of them all, its unfolded antenna spanning 100 meters).

You’d be hard-pressed to find something that doesn’t emit a signal of some sort, and the world’s population seems to make it almost too easy for satellites to scoop them up. According to former NASA scientist and author of the book US Spy Satellites David Baker, the modern age of wireless communication ‘is a godsend to governments because you can't cut into wires from a satellite, but you can literally pick up cell phone towers which are radiating this stuff into the atmosphere. It takes a massive antenna, but you're able to sit over one spot and listen to all the communications traffic’. Through a combination of GEOINT and SIGINT, it is possible to determine information such as the identity of the transmitter, its location, any significant patterns of transmission, and possibly even decrypt a message’s contents. Again, the inundation of transmissions of users across the globe means that identifying sources of interest among the tangle of signals becomes a task in its own right.

What is needed is a detangler, and it seems that the NRO are already on the case. As detailed here, the agency is planning – or has already implemented – an all-encompassing, all-knowing artificial intelligence known as Sentient (yes, right out of a dystopian novel) that will have access to an unthinkable amount of data and can use it to predict its adversaries’ movements. Included in this are thousands of news sources, ships, planes, and sensors, in addition to mobile phone data and, of course, satellites. It can be ‘taught’ to look out for certain patterns, such as the shape of a particular airplane, point these out to its users, and perhaps even send satellites to have a closer look. Relying on a machine for finicky matters such as espionage and military moves is certainly a concern, though it seems humans will stay involved, at least for the moment.

While this sounds disturbing, AI is no stranger to daily life, including the military. But Sentient points to another pattern emerging in US satellite reconnaissance: the involvement of private companies, which started with the launch of the first civilian spy satellite in 1997. Today, three contractors – Maxar, Planet, and BlackSky – are tasked with providing much of the intelligence of Sentient (in addition to government satellites); BlackSky, described as ‘essentially Sentient’s unclassified doppelgänger’, even operates similarly as Sentient will when it’s done. These three companies and many more constitute what are known as private intelligence companies; each have satellites in orbit and aim to provide their customers – which include government agencies – with information similar to that of actual government agencies. Planet, for example, claims to scan over 350 million square kilometers daily in order to help its customers track patterns and changes. Most recently, the NRO awarded study grants to six further companies, focusing on the development of radio frequency SIGINT.

This trend should come as no surprise; in the recent years, private companies have exploded onto the scene of all things space. While contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin have worked with agencies such as NASA since the early days, companies are seemingly taking over now. The US relies on SpaceX to shuttle its astronauts to the ISS and back. Space startups such as Astra aim to provide economically-priced rockets specifically designed for satellite launches. And Open Cosmos advertises ‘made-to-order’ satellites for as low as $500,000. Simply put, space companies are providing cheaper, more efficient access to technology that had always been restricted to governmental agencies, and ballooning the industry while they’re at it. Now, governments have no choice but to pay attention.

In the space-based intelligence sector, the NRO are not alone in teaming up with their private counterparts. The US military has also collaborated with commercial satellites providing data, which was subsequently used on the battlefield; by subsequently, they mean 20 seconds from data collection to fire (as opposed to the 20 minutes it took before). At the Space Force’s industry day event in May 2022, over 35 space companies pitched proposals regarding space-based tactical ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) to governmental agencies; the latter are clearly enticed by the commercial companies’ abilities. ‘There’s quite a bit of opportunity there’ remarks BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole. ‘ISR is clearly becoming a priority and commercial capabilities have a role to play’. In addition, the military has reported ‘impressive’ results using Starlink to connect to tanks and gunships during a live-fire exercise. Using private companies, governments – especially the US’s – can encircle the globe with satellites, leaving no stone unturned.

What seems to be completely forgotten is the public and their interests. Until now, it was common knowledge that governments spy. More recently, corporations’ usages of data have also made waves. But while their working in tandem is undoubtedly helpful to each other, it ultimately leaves the public out of the loop, especially as private companies will surely become less open-sourced as their relationships with secretive agencies grow. And yes, private companies working with branches of the government and military is nothing new (such as Blackwater), but the difference here is that this concerns every piece of information a person puts out into the world, intentional or not; a government’s job is (ideally) to protect its people, but can the same really be said for corporations? As stated here, government programs such as Sentient would still be bound by laws such as Executive Order 12333, but companies are not; could this be a loophole regarding global information?

As seen with the Artemis and Space Shuttle programs, close ties between government agencies and their contractors can result in the given program benefiting mainly said agencies and contractors (such as the SLS rocket being a weak copy of its predecessor, as continued contracts for companies like Boeing would result in more jobs, votes, and a sustained NASA budget). It is clear that companies and governments tag-teaming it – and governmental agencies subsequently being run like a business – has not advanced the field of space much in the past (just ask the Space Shuttle).

That’s not to say companies have not been beneficial in terms of space; quite the opposite. With their own goals in mind, they can pursue ventures such as reaching Mars in our lifetimes better than the Congress-bound NASA, for example. But the topic of freedom of information is a double-edged sword, an issue balancing on the edge between personal rights and safety (and worthy of several essays). Nowhere is this dilemma better visualized than in orbit, with space-based ISR companies providing the means for a more open access to information. While governments spy, and always will spy, it remains to be seen whether the rest of us will get a look in, too.