{"id":8796,"date":"2026-04-03T00:13:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-us-has-declared-space-superiority-over-iran-what-does-that-mean\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T00:13:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:13:36","slug":"the-us-has-declared-space-superiority-over-iran-what-does-that-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-us-has-declared-space-superiority-over-iran-what-does-that-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"The US has declared \u2018space superiority\u2019 over Iran. What does that mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The U.S. military declared space superiority over Iran this week, but defense experts question what that means given the country\u2019s inchoate military space program and heavy reliance on space-based intelligence from other nations.<\/p>\n

Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Tuesday that the U.S. had established control of the space domain during Operation Epic Fury. It was nearly a month after CENTCOM had announced \u201cIran’s equivalent of Space Command\u201d was destroyed, which harmed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019 ability to coordinate retaliatory strikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Space Force has given us the ultimate high ground, delivering space superiority, which has been a critical enabler to this fight,\u201d Cooper said in a Tuesday video.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear if the country is still actively jamming or spoofing U.S. assets, and it\u2019s highly unlikely that the U.S. Space Force has physically destroyed the country\u2019s handful of satellites. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a CENTCOM spokesperson, said he could not discuss details about space operations \u201cdue to classification.\u201d Given Iran’s rudimentary space capabilities, defense experts question what has changed to prompt the military to declare space superiority.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t stopping them from using space assets,\u201d Victoria Samson, the Secure World Foundation\u2019s chief director of space security and stability, said of the U.S. declaring space superiority.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s just a lot of question marks \u2026 In regards to how they use space as a national security enabler, I don\u2019t know that they\u2019ve really stopped it, because they weren\u2019t using it other than for imagery analysis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iran is reportedly relying on China and Russia\u2019s intelligence and commercial space-based imagery to target U.S. assets throughout the region. A U.S. official told Defense One<\/em> that Iran\u2019s use of another country\u2019s space-based data doesn\u2019t mean the service lacks control of the space domain.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because the Iranians are receiving space-based intelligence doesn\u2019t negate that we have space superiority,\u201d the official said.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since 2005, the country has launched a total of 26 satellites, only 13 of which were still operational, according to the American Enterprise Institute\u2019s space data navigator tool. Three of those are registered to the IRGC. The U.S., by comparison, has upwards of 500 operational military and intelligence satellites.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force\u2019s top uniformed officer, acknowledged \u201cit wasn\u2019t really a fair fight,\u201d but said destroying Iran\u2019s space capabilities gave the military an upper hand in communications and air operations within CENTCOM.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have space superiority if you can use space the way you want, and the adversary cannot use space the way they want, and I think those are the conditions that we’ve met in this particular instance,\u201d Saltzman said during a Mitchell Institute event Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cspace superiority\u201d was first publicized in a 1980s Air Force manual. A 2004 service document likened the idea to air superiority and said the two are \u201ccrucial first steps in any military operation.\u201d Last year, the Space Force published a warfighting doctrine that said the service\u2019s \u201cformative purpose\u201d is to achieve space superiority.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSpace superiority is the degree of control that allows forces to operate at a time and place of their choosing without prohibitive interference from space or counterspace threats, while also denying the same to an adversary,\u201d the Space Force\u2019s doctrine reads.<\/p>\n

Some defense experts see the recent declaration of space superiority as a way for the service to highlight its warfighting rebrand in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a weird thing to say. I think it\u2019s more a matter of floating the \u2018Space Force as a warfighting\u2019 thing,\u201d Samson said.<\/p>\n

Kari Bingen, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of the Aerospace Security Project, said it\u2019s not surprising to see the Space Force becoming more integrated into operations, given adversaries\u2019 desire to target command, control, communications, and intelligence capabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween Venezuela and Operation Epic Fury, these have been opportunities for the Space Force to better integrate space effects into a joint military campaign,\u201d Bingen said. \u201cWe\u2019ve long treated space as this special and different capability set. The physics are different, but to make it truly useful to the joint force, it needs to be fully integrated into planning and operations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Saltzman said guardians had been forward deployed to support Operation Epic Fury and continue to launch space effects in combat zones \u201cdespite being under attack from an adversary.\u201d He also said some guardians are supporting the operation stateside out of Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina and CENTCOM headquarters in Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t go into a lot of the operational details, as you might imagine, but you don’t have to think too hard to understand what it is the Guardians are bringing to the fight,\u201d Saltzman said. \u201cAll of the missions that we always do\u2014missile warning, satellite communications. The links are vital. Over-the-horizon communications is as important now as it ever has been. We create disruption for an adversary.\u201d\n\n<\/svg><\/p>\n<\/div>\n