A brief history of military satellites: Surveillance and navigation

From film cassettes jettisoned from space and captured by planes, to the use of AI to detect and classify ships across the globe, military satellites have come a long way.

Space-based surveillance and navigation has come a long way from the early days when the US was placing cameras in orbit and jettisoning the film back to Earth for development, or when mankind looked to the stars to navigate ships at sea.

The first space-based surveillance and reconnaissance assets were launched by the US in the 1950s at the onset of the space age. Even then it was clear that such tools would likely become one of the most critical assets that leading military powers could bring to bear in the conflicts to come.

Initial reconnaissance satellites were little more than orbital cameras and receiving stations, designed to capture photo and video or to pick up electronic signals, radio communications or radar emissions. By 1960, these projects had been funded to the tune of $163.9 million (roughly $1.5 billion today). Clarity of images provided by initial satellites was deemed insufficient however, leading the implementation of the CORONA satellite programme, which saw 144 satellites launched into orbit by 1972.

In order to access the images, these satellites needed to jettison the film in capsules equipped with parachutes. These capsules were then captured by specially equipped planes before they hit the ground.

The biggest breakthrough came in the 1960s in the midst of the Cold War and the space race between the US and Russia, when the US recognised a need to know the exact position of its submarines in the event that they would need to fire ballistic or nuclear missiles. By equipping a satellite with a radio telemetry system, which would be used to determine the location of a radio receiver placed on Earth, the first geopositioning system, called Transit, was created. Transit would eventually be replaced by a large constellation of satellites with the goal of providing real-time location updates, which would be called the global positioning system (GPS).

GPS in the Gulf War

The first test of military satellite capabilities came with the First Gulf War which began in 1990 when Kuwait was invaded and occupied by Iraq. Allied forces, led by the US, joined the war with boots on the ground in operation Desert Storm in 1991. GPS allowed for an unprecedented level of coordination for the coalition forces, offering a key advantage in terrain that would otherwise have been incredibly difficult to navigate. Iraqi forces did not believe that the US military would be able to manoeuvre in the desert and decided not to bother reinforcing these positions along the front.

Through the use of GPS the coalition forces won an astonishing victory, with the ground combat stage of Desert Storm lasting just four days. Iraqi troops suffered 20 to 35,000 casualties with around 100,000 wounded, while coalition forces suffered only 292 casualties and 766 wounded. The war did reveal some weaknesses of satellite navigation however, primarily the susceptibility of the weak satellite signals to jamming by enemy forces. This resulted in the development of laser designators for correcting missile and air strikes.

AI for space surveillance

Since the launch of the first in the 1950s, the quantity of surveillance satellites observing the planet has soared to more than 1,000 as of 2023. The enormous amount of data generated by ever-growing satellite constellations requires an immense personnel effort to assess and sort. AI has a proven ability to handle large data sets in a way that humans simply cannot compete with, and we have already seen machine learning algorithms that have the ability to assess, classify and sort satellite images.

The ability to automatically analyse satellite imagery and rapidly derive the meaningful information is critical in military scenarios as time is always of the essence when assessing threats, for example. A practical application for this technology has been developed recently by a US space technology company, Capella Space, which has the capacity to automatically detect and classify ships at sea.

Dan Getman, VP of Product at Capella Space, said: “When it comes to intelligence, speed and accuracy is of the essence. Capella’s platform effectively minimises the latency from tasking to intelligence extraction.”

We have now seen AI applications in space advance even further, with the satellites themselves becoming AI-enabled, meaning they can assess images as they are captured and send back only what is usable or relevant.

Commercial satellite observation data has also proved invaluable to the Ukrainian war effort, with private companies capturing high resolution images of the war. Such images have helped sway international support in favour of Ukraine and seriously damaged Russian attempts at disinformation campaigns. Notably, satellite imagery produced by Maxar displaying civilian casualties in Bucha in 2022 shed light on alleged Russian war crimes, boosting diplomatic support and military aid for the Ukrainians.

The Maritime Reconnaissance and Surveillance Technology conference, taking place in January 2025, will feature expert talks from global leaders on the surveillance technologies taking shape in the maritime space.