Episode summary
Iran Satellite Data Reveal Scale of US-Israeli Strikes | Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily
· · 8 min · Hosts: Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec · Guests: Krishna Karra
Summary
Bloomberg’s visual investigation used publicly available radar and satellite data to assess the damage from US-Israeli strikes on Iran after commercial high-resolution imagery was no longer accessible. Krishna Karra explained that the team worked with researchers at Oregon State’s conflict ecology lab, who use freely available NASA and European Space Agency data to map damage clusters even when the images are too blurry for direct visual inspection.
The analysis found damage spread beyond a few major urban centers and into smaller towns, with the team estimating thousands of buildings affected across the country. In Tehran and Esfahan, the land-use breakdown of damaged clusters suggested mixed-use areas were hit broadly: military, industrial, civilian, commercial, and government sites were all represented. Karra said the point was not just whether a strike hit one target, but how damage ripples through dense neighborhoods.
He emphasized that the figures were conservative because the data lacks the resolution to capture every hit. Even so, the scale looked substantial, though not comparable to the wall-to-wall destruction seen in Gaza or parts of Ukraine and Russia.
Key takeaways
- Krishna Karra said Bloomberg used free radar data from NASA and the European Space Agency after commercial imagery stopped coming in.
- The researchers estimated roughly 7,600 damaged buildings across Iran, and Karra said that is still a conservative count.
- In Tehran damage clusters, 32% of affected buildings were linked to the military, 25% to industry, 21% to civilians, 19% to commercial use, and 2% to government.
- Karra argued dense urban areas like Tehran make collateral damage difficult to avoid because military and civilian land uses sit side by side.
- The analysis found damage scattered across the country, not just concentrated in a few major cities.
Notable quotes
“they were transmitting and people were able to see them like the first week of the conflict or so and then yeah, basically they turned off, right”
“what they do is they specialize in using publicly freely available radar data to map damage”
“we just took publicly available land use data this is from open street map overure maps”
“the researchers estimated, you know, 7,600 or something buildings across the country that were damaged”
“it is not super high resolution and so that's certainly an undercount”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio news. — You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio. We work with some really cool people at Bloomberg. — We absolutely do. — Car who is part of a team behind today's big take. Krishna is a data journalist uh background in digital signal processing, machine learning, applied mathematics. at Bloomberg. He specializes in satellite imagery, remote sensing, remote sending, geopolitical spatial analysis. He's also an adjunct professor at the Cooper Union and he joins us here in the Bloomberg interactive program.
Perfect person to do this story.
Krishna, it's good to have you on the program. Um, it is today's big take. It's one of the most read on the terminal.
It's analysis of satellite data and it reveals the scope and scale of the USIsraeli strikes on Iran. F first before before we get to what you found which is just absolutely remarkable. How did you do this?
Because we reported early on in the war that some of the publicly available satellite imagery at the request of the US government was being held back. So you the public couldn't view that and we know how difficult it is to get information and photos out of Iran. So how did you guys do this?
Absolutely. Yeah. Um so commercial satellite images.
So these are the ones that are taking the really high resolution shots, the ones that we're used to looking at. you know, you can see the building damage really clearly. They were they were transmitting and people were able to see them like the first week of the conflict or so and then yeah, basically they turned off, right?
And so, um, but the free data, the public data from NASA, the public data from the European Space Agency, that stuff is still collecting and that stuff is still available.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- iran ceasefire
- satellite imagery
- us-israeli strikes
- geopolitical risk
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Bloomberg
Watch the episode
Watch “Iran Satellite Data Reveal Scale of US-Israeli Strikes | Bloomberg Businessweek” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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