By Cassell Bryan-Low and Joey Roulette<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, March 10 (Reuters) – California-based Planet Labs has expanded restrictions on accessing its imagery of the Middle East to prevent adversaries from using \u200cit to attack the U.S. and its allies, a sign of how the expansion \u200cof commercial space business can impact conflicts.<\/p>\n
Planet, which operates a large fleet of Earth-imaging satellites and sells frequently updated images \u200bto governments, companies and media, told customers on Monday that it was extending restrictions to a period of 14 days from a delay of four days imposed last week.<\/p>\n
The move was temporary and in \u201can effort to limit any uncontrolled distribution of the images that might result in their unintentional access \u200cand use as tactical leverage by \u2060adversarial actors,\u201d a Planet spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis conflict is dynamic and in many ways unique to others, and thus Planet is taking robust \u2060steps to help ensure our images do not contribute in any way to attacks on allied and NATO personnel and civilians,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Some space specialists say that Iran could be accessing commercial imagery, \u200bincluding via \u200bother U.S. adversaries.<\/p>\n
SPACE WAR ARENA<\/p>\n
Militaries rely on space for \u200beverything from identifying targets, guiding weapons \u200cand tracking missiles to communications. In a sign of space\u2019s central role in modern warfare, U.S. officials last week said their space forces were among \u201cthe first movers\u201d in the operation against Iran.<\/p>\n
A U.S. Space Command spokesperson declined to detail the capabilities it used. Space Command is responsible for helping with missile tracking, secure communications and using Pentagon satellites as overwatch for U.S. and joint forces \u200con the ground.<\/p>\n
While high-quality satellite imagery used to be the \u200bpreserve of advanced space powers, access to commercial satellite \u200bimagery has leveled the playing field, as \u200bUkraine has experienced during its war with Russia. Now, satellite operators are deploying \u200cAI to help speed up the ability \u200bto analyze imagery and \u200bidentify areas of interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis expert analysis used to be the preserve of high-end military analysts, not anymore,\u201d said Chris Moore, a defense industry consultant and retired air vice-marshal in the \u200bBritish military.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately it will create \u200can all-seeing eye from space that will make the concealment of military forces and \u200bdeception operations difficult to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Cassell Bryan-Low in London and Joey Roulette in \u200bWashington; Editing by Joe Brock and Stephen Coates)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Cassell Bryan-Low and Joey Roulette WASHINGTON, March 10 (Reuters) – California-based Planet Labs has expanded restrictions on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[164547,164546,85,46,62064,141,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-334796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-adversaries","9":"tag-commercial-space-business","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-planet-labs","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}