Study Calls for Greater Use of Satellites in Monitoring Conflict Zones

Totalitarian regimes have often restricted the flow of information to the outside world as they engage in various atrocities, such as mass killings and destruction of communities. A new study documents how satellites have been helping to expose such atrocities and calls for greater use of this technology.

The study, whose findings appeared in the Nature journal, cites cases in which satellite imagery helped to provide reliable information about atrocities in different conflict zones.

One example is the conflict in Myanmar in which the army killed all the people in entire villages and it was hard to find eye-witnesses to provide firsthand information. However, satellite imagery provided solid proof that the government had destroyed a village called Chut Pyin. The Buddhist regime targeted these people because they were Muslims.

In Syria, satellite imagery also helped to draw international attention to the atrocities committed in the country from as far back as 2010, such as the highhanded government response in Homs amid pro-democracy protests. With investigative journalists and journalists in general blocked from accessing the affected areas, it was nearly impossible to know what exactly was happening in the war zones.

Satellite imagery changes all that because satellites are based in outer space and they can be used to view anything happening on Earth in near real-time.

The study makes an impassioned call for satellite imagery to be leveraged more in monitoring and documenting crimes conducted in areas engulfed in conflicts and wars. A recent example is how satellite imagery was analyzed to show that a school in Iran was hit by U.S. munitions during airstrikes against Iran.

However, satellites are also vulnerable to control by authorities. The researcher cites an example of President Trump ordering American commercial satellite imagery providers to refrain from releasing footage of the Gulf area, and specifically the Strait of Hormuz, at the start of the ongoing conflict with Iran. He also requested Europe to hold off the release of satellite imagery of the area by at least 24 hours during the war with Iran.

The limitations notwithstanding, satellite imagery still provides a solid way to monitor the actions of authoritarian regimes and expose their atrocities a lot sooner than would have been possible if the world only relied on eye-witness reports or news stories from the affected areas.

As the insights from this research circulate around the world, entities like Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ: SPCX) that provide satellite services could leverage the opportunities that arise from more organizations taking an interest in using satellite imagery to track or monitor conflicts around the world.

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