Role of satellites in modern air combat

It seems this is quite a “shy” side of modern warfare…i meen everybody is talking about radars and IRST and supercruise and stealth and so forth …but how about satellites?

The reason for this topic is that i’ve read in various magazines over the time interviews with pilots who fought in GW2 or Yugoslavia for instance …and it always puzzled me them talking about haveing 2 independent confirmations about the identity of a bogie ( as per ROE rules), one being AWACS an the other being , and i quote ” another , classified source”

I’m sure that when the american attacked Irak in ’91 or Yugoslavia in ’99, they must have had swarms of satellites over those countries! wondering what was/ is their role in real time air combat…i meen can/are they be used to identify a moving( flying ) target? are they able to follow it ? how are they tracking it , optically , IR?

Its amazing what satelites can do today , you can read a bloody number plate from 200 miles up…and an aircraft is a much bigger target! Surely there must be something to it …

Thoughts?

Thank you.