Guardians ran electromagnetic warfare against Iran during Operation Epic Fury, jamming enemy air defenses and communications while supplying satellite communications, navigation and missile warning to U.S. forces, the Space Force’s top general said Sept 15.
Gen. Douglas Schiess told AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, that the service was never a bystander in the campaign. In his first major address since becoming Chief of Space Operations 12 days earlier, Schiess said the Space Force formed part of the smallest capability set a commander weighs before ordering troops into harm’s way.
He added that the joint force had made clear it could not, and would not, move forward without what space brought to the fight.
The conflict opened in late February. In early March, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. Space Command was among the first movers in the opening strikes on Iran, helping clear a route for the joint force to hit more than 1,000 targets inside 24 hours.
Schiess, who previously led Space Force operations, framed the campaign as proof that guardians deliver spacepower directly rather than supporting from the edge of the fight. Electronic warfare ranks among the service’s fastest-growing mission areas, and the Iran operation pushed orbital jamming effects into a live joint campaign for the first time at this scale.
