Fresh details emerged Wednesday showing that Iran used a spy satellite from China to pinpoint American military bases across the Middle East before launching missile and drone attacks last month.
The revelations put immediate pressure on President Trump, who has taken a hard line against both Tehran and Beijing since returning to the White House.
The Financial Times reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps secretly gained control of the TEE-01B satellite in late 2024.
Earth Eye Co., a Chinese company, built and launched the satellite, which provided the IRGC with high-resolution images it had never had before.
Leaked Iranian military documents spell out exactly how commanders directed the satellite over U.S. and allied sites in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, and Iraq.
One set of records shows the satellite took images of Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 13, 14, and 15.
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Those dates line up with the period when Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles and drones at American positions during the recent flare-up in the region.
The documents include time-stamped coordinates, satellite photos taken before and after the strikes, and orbital data that prove the IRGC used the system for targeting.
On April 15, Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin confirmed the Financial Times account on air.
She said the IRGC obtained access to the satellite shortly after its launch from China and tasked it specifically with watching U.S. military installations.
Griffin noted that the imagery enabled Iran to shift from crude, low-resolution images from its own Noor satellites to sharp, detailed views comparable to commercial 4K quality.
The deal reportedly cost Iran about 250 million renminbi, or roughly $36.6 million. The agreement included ongoing ground control services run from China.
Experts who reviewed the documents told the Financial Times that no Chinese company could have transferred a satellite like this without approval from high-level officials in Beijing.
China denied the entire story.
A Foreign Ministry spokesperson called the claims “completely untrue” and said Beijing does not provide military support to Iran for operations against the United States.
Yet the timing has raised sharp questions inside the Trump administration. The satellite transfer happened months before the current conflict, during a period when Trump was already ramping up sanctions on both countries.
U.S. officials have long warned that China, Russia, and Iran are drawing closer. Tehran supplies drones and missiles that Russia uses in Ukraine, while Beijing buys Iranian oil in large volumes despite Western restrictions.
This latest development shows the partnership now extends into space. The TEE-01B gave Iran a genuine military surveillance boost at a moment when American forces were spread thin across the Gulf.
The strikes in March caused damage at several bases, though U.S. and allied defenses intercepted most incoming projectiles.
Still, the ability of Iranian forces to see real-time or near-real-time imagery of Prince Sultan Air Base in Jordan, the U.S. Fifth Fleet area in Bahrain, and Erbil in Iraq constitutes a clear escalation in Tehran’s reach. Before this, Iran relied on less-accurate commercial imagery or its own rudimentary satellites.
Intelligence sources told Reuters that American analysts had suspected increased cooperation but lacked concrete proof until the leaked documents surfaced.
China now operates hundreds of Earth-observation satellites, many of which have dual-use potential.
What next for Trump?
All eyes are on President Trump right now. He has to decide whether to impose new economic penalties on Chinese tech companies, push allies to further isolate Beijing, or hold direct talks to break the Iran-China link.
The White House didn’t say anything directly about the satellite details, but they told reporters to look at Trump’s past public warnings about China helping Iran.
