Chinese spy ships tracking PSLV launch

China has deployed two spy ships to track India’s upcoming PSLV satellite launch on July 30. The missile and satellite tracking spy vessel Yuan Wang 6 has been spotted in the Indian Ocean region.

On July 29 Geo-intelligence expert Damien Symon tracked the ship was in the Indian Ocean, 1900 nautical miles south east of India. The Yuan Wang 7, meanwhile has moved out of Jiangyin on July 27 with its destination listed on www.marinetraffic.com only as “open sea”. It is presently in the Philippine Sea. Indian military officials believe the two vessels are tracking ISRO’s upcoming July 30 launch of the PSLV rocket.

The PSLV-C56 is to be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 6.30 am. The DS-SAR satellite is developed under a partnership between DSTA (representing the Government of Singapore) and ST Engineering. Once deployed and operational, it will be used to support the satellite imagery requirements of various agencies within the Government of Singapore. ST Engineering will use it for multi-modal and higher responsiveness imagery and geospatial services for their commercial customers.

DS-SAR carries a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). This allows the DS-SAR to provide for all-weather day and night coverage, and capable of imaging at 1m-resolution at full polarimetry. The last visit by the Yuan Wang, this April, coincided with a series of Indian nuclear missile tests. The 2000-km range Agni Prime was test fired into the Bay of Bengal on June 7.

The new generation Agni-P mobile Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) will form the backbone of India’s Strategic Forces Command.