In the past 16 months, Pakistan has significantly expanded its Earth-observation satellite capabilities with six launches, a pace far exceeding its historical record and sparking concerns among experts like Girish Linganna about its potential military utility. While officially designated for civilian purposes such as agriculture and disaster management, Linganna highlights that these platforms inherently possess military applications, capable of monitoring troop movements and military installations. The rapid succession of launches, including the first hyperspectral satellite HS-1, which can detect subtle material properties and camouflage, and PRSC-EO3, with its unusual inclined orbit focused on the Pakistan-India region, further intensifies these concerns. The article also emphasizes the strong link to China, with five of the launches utilizing Chinese rockets and facilities, suggesting a coordinated effort that, combined with China's extensive Yaogan surveillance network, enables near real-time monitoring of Indian territory.

In the past 16 months, Pakistan has significantly expanded its Earth-observation satellite capabilities with six launches, a pace far exceeding its historical record and sparking concerns among experts like Girish Linganna about its potential military utility. While officially designated for civilian purposes such as agriculture and disaster management, Linganna highlights that these platforms inherently possess military applications, capable of monitoring troop movements and military installations. The rapid succession of launches, including the first hyperspectral satellite HS-1, which can detect subtle material properties and camouflage, and PRSC-EO3, with its unusual inclined orbit focused on the Pakistan-India region, further intensifies these concerns. The article also emphasizes the strong link to China, with five of the launches utilizing Chinese rockets and facilities, suggesting a coordinated effort that, combined with China's extensive Yaogan surveillance network, enables near real-time monitoring of Indian territory.

In the past 16 months, Pakistan has significantly expanded its Earth-observation satellite capabilities with six launches, a pace far exceeding its historical record and sparking concerns among experts like Girish Linganna about its potential military utility. While officially designated for civilian purposes such as agriculture and disaster management, Linganna highlights that these platforms inherently possess military applications, capable of monitoring troop movements and military installations. The rapid succession of launches, including the first hyperspectral satellite HS-1, which can detect subtle material properties and camouflage, and PRSC-EO3, with its unusual inclined orbit focused on the Pakistan-India region, further intensifies these concerns. The article also emphasizes the strong link to China, with five of the launches utilizing Chinese rockets and facilities, suggesting a coordinated effort that, combined with China's extensive Yaogan surveillance network, enables near real-time monitoring of Indian territory.

Over the past 16 months, Pakistan has launched six Earth-observation satellites, creating what experts describe as a rapidly expanding surveillance capability.

Space analyst Girish Linganna pointed out that the significance of these launches lies not just in the number of satellites but in the pace at which Pakistan has built them.

"From its founding in 1961 all the way to 2024, Pakistan's space agency, SUPARCO, managed only nine launches in total. It has now almost matched that lifetime record in a little over a year. Something fundamental has shifted," he said.

While the satellites are officially described as Earth-observation platforms for agriculture, disaster management and civilian mapping, Linganna noted that such systems have inherent military utility.

"Every Earth-observation satellite, by its very nature, can also spot military bases, track troop movements, count ships in a harbour and notice changes on the ground. The same camera that watches crops can watch a cantonment," he explained.

The launches came in quick succession. PAUSAT-1 was launched on January 14, 2025, aboard a SpaceX rocket, followed just three days later by PRSC-EO1 on a Chinese Long March-2D rocket. Pakistan later launched PRSC-S2 in July, HS-1 in October 2025, and then PRSC-EO2 and PRSC-EO3 in early 2026. They came one after another, like building a secret sky network.

Linganna notes that HS-1 is particularly noteworthy because it is Pakistan's first hyperspectral satellite.

"An ordinary camera sees only red, green and blue — the colours our eyes know. A hyperspectral satellite captures hundreds of tiny colour bands invisible to us. Imagine it as a super detective that can sense hundreds of different colours instead of just three. This lets it read a 'light fingerprint' for every object on the ground, telling what a material is made of, seeing through camouflage, and detecting changes a normal photo would miss. It doesn't just photograph the earth, it reads it," he said.

According to the analyst, PRSC-EO3 is another satellite that deserves attention because of its unusual orbit.

Most Earth-observation satellites are placed in sun-synchronous orbits that provide broad global coverage. However, Linganna pointed out that PRSC-EO3 follows a different path.

A US-based space analytics firm, COMSPOC, flagged that the satellite operates in a 38-degree inclined orbit. According to Linganna, this means the satellite sacrifices global coverage in favour of revisiting a narrower geographic band more frequently.

"That strip, between roughly 20 and 40 degrees north latitude, is exactly where Pakistan, northern India and Jammu and Kashmir lie. This satellite is not built to watch the world. It is built to watch a specific region — and that region is us," he said.

Linganna further argued that Pakistan's growing surveillance capability becomes more significant when viewed alongside China's space infrastructure.

"An analysis using the commercial imagery platforms Apollo Mapping and SkyFi shows that Pakistan's six satellites, along with a range of Chinese networks, can photograph Indian territory at least once every two days — roughly one pass every 48 hours. At the same time, the China connection cannot be ignored. Five of the six launches used Chinese rockets from Chinese facilities, and PRSC-S2 was a direct bilateral project," he said.

Other experts also point to active intelligence-sharing between the Chinese and Pakistani space programmes. China's Yaogan satellite series, which combines optical imaging, radar surveillance and electronic intelligence capabilities, already provides extensive coverage of India.

Yet, Western and Indian analysts have long seen Yaogan as the backbone of China's military reconnaissance fleet, with roughly 140 satellites combining sharp optical cameras, radar that sees through clouds and darkness, and electronic eavesdropping. They already keep India under close, continuous watch. Now Pakistan has its own eyes to add on top. According to experts, this real-time sharing was visible during Operation Sindoor itself.

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