New Delhi: As India joins the US, Australia and Japan for the Malabar Exercise in Australia, new data from commercial space obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC), has revealed that China has been spying on the naval drills with hundreds of satellites. The satellites have also allegedly collected intelligence on military training activities involving the United States and other regional partners.
The data obtained by ABC details the full scale of China’s surveillance on the “Exercise Talisman Sabre” military exercise, as well as the “Exercise Malabar” naval drills now being held off Sydney.
According to the ABC News report, Australian defence company, EOS Space Systems, in July, tracked three Chinese geostationary orbit satellites manoeuvring into position below the equator to monitor the US and Australian militaries along with the troops of 13 other countries’ that carried out the biennial Talisman Sabre exercise across northern Australia.
The data revealed that some of the Chinese satellites, such as Shiyan 12-01, Shijian-17 and Shijian-23, have been manoeuvring over the Australian region. While the Shiyan 12-01 satellite was detected gliding westwards over the northern Australia region, the Shijian-17 and Shijian-23 satellites were tracked drifting towards the east — where exercises were being conducted, it added.
According to EOS Space Systems, since the Malabar Exercise began on 10 August, hundreds of low-orbit satellites were tracked completing thousands of flights at much lower altitudes over the Australian continent, focusing on the activity of warships around Sydney Harbour, ABC News reported.
The Malabar Exercise, which involves the navies of India, the US, Australia and Japan — also known as the Quad grouping — began on 10 August and will continue till 21 August.
Also read: China has spy balloons, India has aerostats. But IAF’s had mixed results from 16-yr-old project
‘Providing Beijing extremely detailed & persistent observation’
ABC has quoted EOS Space Systems’s James Bennett as saying that they had “seen over 300 satellites surveying ground-based activities and the number of overflights is over 3,000 since the start of the Malabar Exercise centred around the Sydney Harbour Bay area”.
Bennett added that the “geostationary and low-orbit Chinese satellites currently above Australia are providing Beijing with extremely detailed and persistent observation of what is occurring on the mainland and offshore.”
This comes after a Chinese surveillance ship, a Dongdiao-Class Auxiliary General Intelligence (AGI), was spotted heading towards Australia in July, the report added.
Chinese space activity was tracked using telescopes stationed outside Canberra and at Learmonth in Western Australia, said the ABC report. The Chinese can reportedly access the capabilities and equipment along with the ground military activities.
Interestingly, ABC News also quoted James Brown, the chief executive of the Space Industry Association of Australia, as saying that they had seen “an extraordinary amount of Chinese intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance satellites being launched in recent years, and Australia is a target for all that activity; space is becoming a critical domain for any future conflict and any potential conflict.”
He accepted that Australia, “by contrast”, did not have any military satellites and “certainly did not have any such capability to collect the imagery akin to what China has been collecting.”
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
Also Read: India & US to hold Yudh Abhyas exercise in Alaska next month, focus on disaster relief operations