Iran secretly acquired a Chinese spy satellite that gave the Islamic republic a powerful new capability to target US military bases across the Middle East during the recent war, according to leaked Iranian military documents.
The records show the satellite, known as TEE-01B, was acquired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace Force in late 2024 after it was launched into space from China.
Time-stamped coordinate lists, satellite imagery and orbital analysis show that Iranian military commanders later tasked the satellite to monitor key US military sites. The images were taken in March before and after drone and missile strikes on those locations.
TEE-01B was built and launched by Earth Eye Co, a Chinese company that says it offers “in-orbit delivery”, a little-known export model under which spacecraft launched in China are transferred to overseas customers after reaching orbit.
TEE-01B is capable of capturing imagery at roughly half-metre resolution, comparable to high-resolution commercially available western satellite imagery. It represents a significant upgrade on Iran’s domestic capabilities and would allow analysts to identify aircraft, vehicles and changes to infrastructure.
By contrast, the IRGC Aerospace Force’s previously most advanced military satellite — the Noor-3 — was estimated, based on Iranian claims, to capture imagery at about 5 metres resolution, an improvement on the Noor-2 system’s 12-15 metre imagery but still about an order of magnitude less precise than the Chinese-built satellite and insufficient to identify aircraft or monitor activity at military bases.
Earth Eye Co says on its website that it has carried out one “in-orbit” transfer to an unnamed country that was part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Iran joined Belt and Road in 2021.
The company says on its website that the satellite was intended to be used for “agriculture, ocean monitoring, emergency management, natural resource supervision, and municipal transportation”.
In September 2024, the IRGC Aerospace Force — which oversees Iran’s ballistic missile, drone and space programmes — agreed to pay about Rmb250mn ($36.6mn) to acquire control over the satellite system, according to the documents seen by the FT.
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