A Chinese company that specialises in generating geospatial intelligence is actively tracking American military aircraft and ships involved in ongoing operations against Iran, highlighting the vulnerability of conventional armed forces to observation from satellites in low Earth orbit.
Shanghai-headquartered MizarVision has been posting satellite photos of US military activity throughout the past week to social media, including the movement of naval vessels and the location of both combat and support aircraft.
A number of the facilities and assets posted by MizarVision were subsequently targeted by Iran in missile and drone strikes, which were launched after the US and Israel initiated Operation Epic Fury on 28 February.
Thus far those ongoing airstrikes have killed Iran’s former supreme leader Ali Khameni and caused the widespread disruption of air travel in the Middle East. At least four US troops were killed in retaliatory strikes by Iran.
Three Boeing F-15E fighters from the US Air Force were also downed in an apparent friendly fire incident involving ground-based air defence systems in Kuwait. Qatar separately claims to have shot down two Iranian Sukhoi Su-24 attack jets.
Among the US assets catalogued by MizarVision in recent days and posted to the social media site X are Lockheed Martin F-22 stealth fighters parked on the ramp at Israel’s Ovda air base and a range of critical platforms staged at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan air base, including seven Boeing E-3 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) jets and two Bombardier E-11 communications aircraft.
“Satellite imagery shows the US military continuously transporting supplies to Ovda air force base via [Boeing] C-17s,” MizarVision said on 27 February. ”During the same period, seven F-22s were parked on the tarmac, and four F-22s were spotted on the runway.”
Operation Epic Fury launched roughly 24h after that observation, accompanied by imagery which was posted to X.
Other key facilities have also been observed, including the al-Udeid air base in Qatar, which was targeted by Iran in a drone and missile attack.
Naval assets, including Washington’s two aircraft carriers in the region, were also located and tracked by MizarVision on their approach to the Middle East.
The company says satellites “continuously tracked” the USS Gerald R Ford, the US Navy’s newest and largest flattop, following the carrier’s departure from Souda Bay naval base in Crete late last week.
Images of the Ford posted on 26 February show Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and Northrop Grumman E-2D airborne early warning and control aircraft staged on the flight deck.
The same day, MizarVision posted photos of the USS Abraham Lincoln, the other aircraft carrier in the region, appearing to rendezvous with a resupply vessel in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Oman.
Separate analysis posted on 28 February shows how other open source tools can be combined with commercial satellite imagery to track carriers at sea.
Using imagery and flight tracking software, MizarVision followed a US Navy Boeing P-8A maritime patrol jet from Isa air base in Bahrain to an area in the Arabian Sea, where the Lincoln is known to be operating.
“The aircraft is suspected of providing protection and defence for the Lincoln,” MizarVision concludes.
Intelligence coming from the Chinese firm has not only been limited to the Middle East aera of operations.
On the same day it was tracking the Ford in the Mediterranean, MizarVision’s satellites photographed Diego Garcia – the Indian Ocean atoll where Washington leases an air base from the UK.
Photos of Diego Garcia’s runway posted on 26 February show US Lockheed F-16 fighters, Boeing KC-135 tankers and a number of heavy-lift transport aircraft, including C-17s and a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had notably refused to allow the US military to use Diego Garcia as a staging area for the Operation Epic Fury strikes against Iran, before reversing course late on 1 March under pressure from US President Donald Trump.
It is unclear if the Chinese imagery of American troop movements was used by Tehran to support its missile and drone strikes across the Middle East, but the deluge of material shows how difficult it has become to hide military assets from adversarial observers.
While attempting to avoid observation from orbiting reconnaissance has been a common practise since the Cold War, 20th Century spy satellites were large and relatively few in number, with limited ability to reposition.
The proliferated low-Earth orbit constellations of the 21st Century use a large number of small, cheaper satellites that can provide global coverage at a fraction of the cost Cold War-era imagery required.
That substantially reduced price has allowed numerous commercial operators to launch private satellite imaging and analysis services. The major players in the space are American firms Vantor (formerly Maxar Intelligence) and Planet Labs alongside Airbus Defence & Space in Europe.
MizarVision does not itself operate any satellites, but uses artificial intelligence and other remote sensing tools to rapidly scan and analyse commercially available imagery. However, the exact source of that imagery remains a matter of ongoing debate – one which the company does not disclose.
One option is China’s indigenously developed Jilin-1 constellation, although there is some scepticism that the Chinese satellites can provide the quality of resolution seen in MizarVision’s images.
The South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initative (SCSPI), a group of China-based scholars and former military officers studying Chinese security matters, has suggested the true source of MizarVision’s imagery is Western companies.
”They are not Chinese satellite imagery. Judging by the satellite ephemeris, it is not difficult to find out that most of the original image are from some American and European companies,” the SCSPI posted to its official X account on 26 February.
Although ostensibly a private business, MizarVision, like all Chinese companies, is subject to the whims of China’s premier Xi Jinping and dictates from the ruling Chinese Communist Party – meaning the company could be obtaining and releasing geospatial intelligence at the direction of Beijing.
Notably, MizarVision’s account on X indicates the company only joined the social media site in January and made its first post on 24 February – as Washington’s Middle East build-up was getting underway.
Unlike government-operated spy satellites, commercial reconnaissance constellations carry no risk of exposing sensitive “sources and methods” information, such as the technical capabilities of a particular platform or system.
This opens up new options for governments looking to make use of geospatial intelligence in more flexible ways.
Washington notably released commercially obtained images of Russian troop movements around Ukraine and Belarus in late 2021 and early 2022, in an attempt to convince European leaders that Moscow was preparing to invade, rather than conducting exercises as the Kremlin had been claiming.
The public release of such imagery sourced from government spy satellites would not have been possible, owing to concerns about inadvertently revealing the technical capabilities of those platforms.
At the recent Air & Space Forces Warfare Symposium in Denver, Colorado, an analyst from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies showed how commercially available imagery from Planet Labs could be used to estimate the annual output capacity of China’s military aerospace industry.
“I can assure you no classified sources or methods were harmed in making of this presentation,” J Michael Dahm, senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute, quipped.
Dahm says there are now privately operated constellations featuring “hundreds” of satellites providing “extremely high-resolution colour, as well as multi-spectral and near-infrared images” from orbit.
Notably, that imagery can be downloaded to analysts on Earth almost immediately after being captured – offering a cheap source of real-time intelligence that was until recently available to only the most sophisticated (and deep pocketed) national intelligence agencies.
Even as recently as the 1990s, some of the Pentagon’s most important orbital reconnaissance platforms did not have the ability to provide real time-imagery via digital uplink.
Dahm says the Lockheed KH-9 satellite, codenamed Hexagon, had to parachute film back to Earth for recovery and processing.
“After days or weeks of imaging, the film was rolled up into film recovery capsules and then ejected back to Earth like an escape pod,” Dahm said during his presentation in Denver.
“As the pods parachuted in over the ocean, a specially equipped [Lockheed] C-130 would snag the parachute with a trapeze, reel in the capsule and bring the film in to be developed,” he added.
Pilots of that aircraft, the Lockheed Martin JC-130, would visually line up a flight path to manually capture the incoming parachute with a winch system deployed from the rear cargo ramp.
Pickups were made off the coast of Hawaii, with JC-130s launching from Hickam AFB in Honolulu.
Those days are long past, and now scholars, journalists, industrial competitors and isolated authoritarian governments can gain access to sophisticated geospatial intelligence in almost real time.
While commercial imagery can provide advanced warning of strategic asset movements like E-3s and aircraft carriers, it can also provide tactical level intelligence to support the formation of kill chains.
Images of the al-Udeid air base in Qatar posted by MizarVision on 28 February showed the location of Patriot air defence batteries arrayed around the facility, which is Washington’s largest military base in the Middle East.
The addition of AI tools makes the availability of commercial imagery even more potent.
Making use of geospatial intelligence would have previously required a small army of highly skilled human analysts, who would identify the objects in frame and help assess their military significance.
Now, AI can rapidly analyse thousands of photos for key assets like an aircraft carrier at sea or a critical AWACS aircraft parked on the ground – and provide locations and timestamps to targeting officers.
However, the Pentagon is aware of the power of commercial satellite imagery, as evidenced by its public releases ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US government has also demonstrated an awareness of how legions of analysts, hobbyists and journalists are using open source tools to monitor its military operations.
During the 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, the Pentagon sortied a flight of Northrop Grumman B-2 stealth bombers in the wrong direction to throw off observers using flight tracking software to monitor traffic around the B-2 fleet’s home base in Missouri.
As the feint was headed west over the Pacific, the actual strike force of B-2s travelled east over the Atlantic from Whiteman AFB on the non-stop, round-trip flight to Iran.
Just as they were aware of the risk posed by flight tracking software, planners at the Pentagon are likely cognizant of their exposure to commercial satellites.
This danger can perhaps be mitigated at the strategic level with secrecy and subterfuge around the movement of assets like stealth bombers and aircraft carriers.
But it is unclear if tactical level forces are prepared for near constant observation from orbit. Troop movements through a closely watched area of operations or forces defending fixed installations like air bases will face a much tougher challenge in trying to obscure their presence.
Much as Western armies and air forces are increasingly aware of the necessity to adapt their tactics and operations in the era of drone warfare, they will also need to adapt to a world in which cheap reconnaissance satellites are always watching.
