Jamming of two Eutelsat satellites from within Iran during the Mahsa Amini protests (September-October 2022)
What happened
On 7 October 2022 Eutelsat said that since 26 September signals originating from Iran had been jamming two of its satellites, and that the interferences harmfully affected the transmission of several digital television and radio channels broadcasting in Persian from outside Iran, as well as other channels. Eutelsat said it used a specially designed interference detection system and concluded that the uplink transmissions of all the interfering carriers originated within Iran. It notified the relevant Iranian authorities, demanded that the harmful jamming operations be immediately and permanently stopped, and reminded them that intentional jamming is explicitly prohibited by the International Telecommunication Union Radio Regulations. Eutelsat said its technical experts were working with affected customers to mitigate the impact on service. The interference coincided with the nationwide protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody on 16 September 2022. Reuters reported it could not obtain an immediate Iranian response.
The strongest attribution in the batch by method: the operator states that its interference detection system placed the uplink transmissions of ALL the interfering carriers within Iran, which is a stronger claim than locating one emitter. Two details commonly reported alongside this event are deliberately absent from the description. The affected spacecraft are Hot Bird 13C and Eutelsat 7B. SpaceNews, which carried the operator's own attribution of the pair, appends the notice that it was edited on 7 October 2022 to correct the name of one of the two satellites, and Broadband TV News gives the same pair a day earlier and independently. This record carried Eutelsat 3D until 23 August 2026; 3D is the uncorrected name, and it survives in copies of the pre-correction text. Of the two sources this record cited before 23 August 2026 neither names a spacecraft at all, which is why SpaceNews was added that day as the origin of the pair. The naming of BBC Persian, Manoto, Radio Farda and Iran International as affected broadcasters appears in reporting that could not be retrieved in full in this session, and is recorded as an open question rather than asserted. This is a later episode of the pattern recorded in iran-foreign-broadcast-jamming-2009-2012.
Attack vector
Uplink transmission of interfering carriers into the receive bands of two geostationary broadcast satellites from within one national territory, against transponders carrying Persian-language channels uplinked from outside that territory.
Operational impact
Harmful interference to the transmission of several digital television and radio channels broadcasting in Persian from outside Iran, and to other channels sharing the affected capacity, sustained over at least eleven days and coinciding with nationwide protests.
Affected segments
link, space, user
Disclosed
2022-10-07
SPARTA techniques evidenced
Each row is a technique this record evidences, with the reasoning and the source that attests to it.
What relationship, confidence, and evidence mean on the rows below
- Relationship
What kind of link this is between the technique and the target.
Mitigates: the target actively prevents, detects, or recovers from the technique.
Addresses: the target governs the technique or is relevant to it, without interdicting it. Most governance and policy obligations sit here.
Triggers obligation: the technique occurring is what triggers the duty the target imposes.
Relates to: related to the technique, but the target neither interdicts nor governs it. Used sparingly.
- Confidence
How strongly the source supports this mapping, not how severe the technique is.
High: the source supports the mapping squarely.
Moderate: supported, with a qualification such as a cross-tactic reading that stays operationally sound.
Low: the source reaches the technique only in part.
- Evidence
How close to the source text the mapping was made.
Direct: a verbatim excerpt of the cited source was read against the technique, and the rationale argues from that excerpt.
Derived: the mapping follows from the source's scope or structure, with no on-point excerpt addressing the technique.
Inferred: reached by composition through another framework, or by domain reasoning the source does not support on its face.
Eutelsat's phrasing that the interference affected the Persian-language channels 'as well as other channels' is the co-tenancy effect: the interfering carriers loaded the shared transponder path and denied traffic that was not the target. That is EX-0013.02's RF-layer case. Derived because the operator describes the outcome, not the receiver behaviour.
The satellite operator states that its own spacecraft were jammed by signals originating from a named country over a dated period, and characterises the effect as harmful interference with transmissions. SPARTA's bibliography cites this incident at EX-0016.
Eutelsat states that the uplink transmissions of all the interfering carriers originate within Iran. The technique is named in the operator's own words: interfering carriers uplinked at the spacecraft. The same scope caveat applies as elsewhere, that EX-0016.01's effect clause is written about telecommand and ranging traffic while what was denied here was payload programming; the behaviour is nonetheless stated, not inferred.
Multiple interfering carriers uplinked from within one territory implies one or more transmitting ground facilities outside the authorised ground architecture, which is IA-0008.01's setup. Derived: the operator localises the transmissions to a country, not to sites, and the objective was denial rather than initial access.
The operator's own characterisation is that transmissions were harmfully affected while its experts worked with customers to mitigate the impact on service, which is temporary impairment over a period rather than elimination.
Persian-language channels were the object of the jamming during a period in which the state was suppressing coverage of nationwide protests, and the mitigation effort implies that service was lost rather than merely degraded. Derived because no retrieved source states that any named channel went off air, which is what a direct IMP-0003 mapping would need.
Considered and not mapped
These techniques were considered for this record because a source, a related record or SPARTA's own catalogue pointed at them. Each was read against what the sources say and not mapped. The reason is given in full.
SPARTA's bibliography cites this incident here. The operator says the interfering carriers were uplinked. See gap-analysis.md.
Cited by SPARTA at this incident. No commercial ground-station service is implicated on the record.
Cited by SPARTA at this incident, along with REC-0003.01 and REC-0009. No reconnaissance activity is described in any retrieved source; the citations are context.
Cited by SPARTA at this incident, along with REC-0003.01 and REC-0009. No reconnaissance activity is described in any retrieved source; the citations are context. The same ground as
REC-0003.Cited by SPARTA at this incident, along with REC-0003.01 and REC-0009. No reconnaissance activity is described in any retrieved source; the citations are context. The same ground as
REC-0003.
Sources
The published accounts this record rests on. The tier is SafeMode Space's own assessment of the source, and the reason for it is given beside it. What the tiers mean and how they are assigned: the source tiers.
A source is listed when a mapped technique rests on it, or when it disputes the account. One the curators read but neither cited nor recorded as disputing the record is not listed, so an absence here means neither is true rather than that nobody looked.
Tier 2: Specialist satellite-industry trade press reporting the operator's statement with direct quotation.
Tier 2: Specialist satellite-industry reporting by a named staff correspondent, quoting the operator's external communications director on the record by name. It carries a dated correction notice of its own, stating that it was edited on 7 October 2022 to correct the name of one of the two satellites, which is why its text is preferable to reproductions of it.
Tier 2: Wire-derived report carrying the operator's statement verbatim; independent of the affected broadcasters.
Every source SafeMode Space reproduces, and on what terms: sources and attribution.