Pak expands satellite network after Sindoor intelligence gaps

NEW DELHI: When Pakistani commanders struggled to make sense of battlefield movements during Operation Sindoor in May 2025, the problem wasn't confusion on the ground it was in orbit. Delayed and infrequent satellite imagery left Rawalpindi's General Headquarters blind to key developments, exposing a weakness long known inside Pakistan's security establishment: its space-based intelligence system couldn't keep up with the pace of modern conflict.

That shortfall set off an urgent push to expand and diversify the country's surveillance capabilities. Within months, Pakistan had launched three new satellites, reopened dormant European imagery channels, and deepened partnerships with China, Turkey and the United States an effort meant to close a strategic gap that became visible in war.

The effort began earlier. In mid-January, months before the Sindoor conflict and the Pahalgam massacre (which Indian intelligence agencies have assessed was coordinated by handlers in Pakistan), Islamabad had overseen two major satellite launches within just three days.

The first, aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 under the Transporter-12 mission, carried PAUSAT-1, a 10U nano-satellite developed by Air University, Islamabad, with Istanbul Technical University (ITU). The platform carries a high-resolution multispectral imager with roughly 1.5-metre ground resolution and a hyperspectral sensor capable of distinguishing terrain, vegetation and infrastructure in greater detail. While small, PALISAT-I's partnership with ITU was strategically notable: the Turkish university is part of European Horizon research networks, giving Pakistan indirect access to engineering standards and component ecosystems outside its traditional dependence on Chinese suppliers.

Three days later, on 17 January, Pakistan launched PRSC-EOL, an electro-optical earth-observation satellite developed by SUPARCO, from China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center aboard a Long March-20 rocket. Billed as domestically designed, PRSC-EOL continues to rely on Chinese technical and launch support. Its stated missions—land mapping, agriculture, urban development and environmental tracking carry an unmistakable dual-use logic.

These came after the October launch of HS-1, Pakistan's first hyperspectral satellite, from the same Chinese facility. SUPARCO hailed it as a "major milestone," citing roles in agriculture, mineral mapping, coastal surveillance and urban planning. Hyperspectral imaging, however, has clear military value: detecting camouflage, monitoring airfields and tracking infrastructure change. The operational lessons from Sindoor highlighted why those capabilities mattered.

During the conflict, Pakistan's primary military imaging satellite, PRSS-1, managed to capture only one clear pre-strike image of key Indian air bases—Pathankot, Udhampur and Adampur—before weather and orbital gaps limited coverage. Post-strike image-assessment imagery arrived days later, allowing India to conceal, repair or reposition assets. An earlier attempt at sovereign imaging through the 2018 PakTES-IA satellite has faltered; the platform is in controlled descent and no longer used for tasking.

The weakness isn't only in orbit. Pakistan's ground infrastructure depends on two main nodes: the Karachi downlink station and the National Centre for Remote Sensing and Geo-Informatics in Islamabad. The system lacks redundancy and sits within strike range in a major conflict. The vulnerability first became apparent during the 2022 floods, when a power disruption in Karachi delayed critical imagery by nearly 18 hours. Proposals for backup terminals in the west remain on paper.

Islamabad has long supplemented its domestic network with commercial imagery from Airbus SPOT-6, Pléiades and TerraSAR-X satellites through a direct receiving station established in the 1990s. But those arrangements allow only imagery requests, not real-time retasking. During the 2024 Iran-Pakistan border escalation, emergency tasking requests to European providers took 36 to 48 hours to fulfill. By contrast, PRSS-1 can deliver usable imagery within four to six hours when weather permits one reason Chinese access remains operationally central even as Pakistan seeks diversification.

Officials familiar with SUPARCO's planning say the next milestone will be a synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellite, targeted for launch between 2026 and 2027. SAR's ability to capture images through cloud cover and at night is considered the threshold for genuine reconnaissance autonomy.

For now, Pakistan's trajectory is to layer sovereignty onto dependence rather than replace it. The country is building multiple lines of access Chinese, Turkish, Western without fully owning any. For Beijing, that suits broader interests. A Pakistan capable of steady surveillance along its western and internal frontiers helps insulate China's Xinjiang region from instability. Chinese engineers remain embedded in SUPARCO's integration and calibration programs, ensuring Beijing's visibility and influence even as Islamabad broadens its partnerships.