Between January 2025 and April 2026, Pakistan launched a series of satellites—PAUSAT-1, PRSC-EO1, PRSS-2, HS-1, PRSC-EO2 and PRSC-EO3—to conduct surveillance on India, Afghanistan, China, Iran and the northern Indian Ocean.
According to a report in The Print, the chain of satellites had been monitoring Indian territory “at least once every two days”.
The publication quoted an expert as saying that these satellites are capable of monitoring the Indian Navy’s Vessels and cargo ships, as well as troop movement in the country and can locate even “camouflaged assets”.
The suspicious scheduling of these launches by the Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), the country's national space agency, over a period of 16 months, points towards more of a military/strategic purpose rather than solely for civilian use.
SUPARCO's two most closely timed launches took place in January last year. PAKSAT-1 was launched aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on January 14, followed just three days later by the launch of PRSC-EO1 (Pakistan Remote Sensing Satellite-Earth Observation 1) aboard China's Long March-2D rocket on January 17. The launches took place three months before the Pahalgam attacks.
Another factor that raised suspicion was the pace of SUPARCO's recent launch activity. Since its establishment in 1961, the agency has conducted only 15 satellite launches, but six of those have taken place in the past 16 months alone.
Pakistan launched its first satellite, Badr-1, in 1990. The next mission, the Badr-B research satellite, followed only in 2001. After that, SUPARCO did not conduct another launch until 2011. Launches then became somewhat more frequent, with missions in 2013, two launches in 2018, and another two in 2024.
The launches highlighted Pakistan's dependence on foreign space agencies for launching its satellites, even for military purposes.
