The war Israel has been embroiled in since October 7 is often referred to as a seven-front war, but this is a misconception. There is an eighth front, the final frontier: the space front.
For decades, several countries have been preparing themselves for when warfare expands into space, with the US, China, India, and more all having tested weaponry that can be used to combat threats outside the planet Earth. This included numerous tests, with missiles fired into space and then intercepted.
But it was Israel that proved to be the first country to take space warfare out of the realm of tests and theories and into practice, whether it wanted to or not.
On October 31, 2023, less than a month after Israel was thrust into a war with Hamas that would soon expand to multiple fronts, the Houthis in Yemen fired a ballistic missile at the Jewish state.
The missile was a Qadr, manufactured by Iran. And unlike other missiles that had been fired at Israel until that point, this one managed to go higher than ever before, above 100 kilometers above sea level. This means it passed the Karman line, the border between Earth and space.
And Israel's Arrow missile defense system managed to intercept it. And in doing so, the world entered the age of space combat.
The era of space warfare is here: Is the Jewish state ready?
Israel's interception of a ballistic missile in space is impressive, but it also signifies the fact that ballistic missiles are, in fact, able to travel through space.
This presents a worrying new obstacle as ballistic missiles are now used more and more frequently in war, with Israel having had to fend off barrages of missiles from both Yemen and Iran since 2023.
Going beyond just missiles, space has also played a significant role in recent years in warfare, particularly in the collection of vital battlefield information. Satellite intelligence was vital in revealing Russia's military buildup ahead of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, for example, and the IDF regularly disrupts GPS in order to disrupt the targeting of drones and missiles.
However, while Israel has made strides in space before, boasting a budding space-tech ecosystem and the work of the Israel Space Agency, including the recent launch of the Dror-1 satellite, it still lags behind on the military front. The Arrow can stop ballistic missiles in space, but the US developed missiles that, fired from a fighter jet, could take out a satellite in orbit. The IDF doesn't have anything of that caliber in its arsenal.
Many countries already have dedicated military branches for space warfare, with the US, China, India, and even Iran all having dedicated space forces.
While the Israel Space Agency is focused on scientific research, there is a branch of the IDF that focuses on space, the Space Directorate, which was founded in 2024. But this fledgling unit in the IDF is still years behind other countries.
The Dror-1 satellite, however, represents a major step in the right direction, offering a much more reliable and hack-resistant means of communication. This builds on Israel's previous strides in the satellite sector. The Ofek series of reconnaissance satellites has been invaluable to the Jewish state over the years, providing critical data and taking high-quality images of vast swathes of land.
Israel has already demonstrated its ability to take advantage of this. Prior to the attacks on Iran in Operation Rising Lion, Israeli satellites utilized comprehensive space-based intelligence gathering, capturing tens of millions of square kilometers through day-night surveillance, producing over 12,000 satellite images of Iranian territory.
This wasn't just simple snapshots either. According to the Defense Ministry, Israel has utilized its satellites so efficiently that it was able to maintain real-time, constant tactical and operational surveillance of targets throughout Iran, a country that spans around 1.6 million square kilometers.
This meant not only were they essential for the preparations in attacking Iran, but also in maintaining the attack by constantly evaluating the effectiveness of Israel's airstrikes.
However, even still, the Jewish state needs to play catch-up, especially since there is already no shortage of private satellite companies, including some in Israel like ImageSat, that are putting this space-based technology to use for gathering intelligence.
Israel is no stranger to being outmatched by the bigger world powers, who boast budgets and manpower that vastly dwarf the Jewish state's own resources. But in the future of space warfare, that may not matter as much.
According to Cpt. Alan T. Dugger, a University of California, Davis assistant professor of military science, conflicts in space are far more technical.
Writing in an article published by West Point's Modern War Institute, Tugger discussed a recent space wargame carried out in the US that highlighted how space warfare is not characterized by the ability to use overwhelming force, but about "playing the long game" to position assets over time and using all resources - technological, commercial, diplomatic, and more - to shape the battlefield well in advance of the fight actually starting.
"The space domain is a gray zone, where success is determined before the first public move is made. In this arena, subtlety is power, and dominance means seeing the board before the opponent even realizes the game has begun," Tugger wrote.
He's right. The space front is here - the seal was torn off on October 31, 2023, and there is no going back.
Israel can still prepare, and the fact that the Arrow missile was able to successfully intercept a Houthi and even Iranian missiles in space shows that. Whether Israel wanted to or not, the Jewish state has blazed the trail going into the era of space warfare. Now it just needs to catch up to the rest of the world.