Pakistan buys China’s Jilin-1 satellite data

New Delhi: Pakistan has purchased from China real-time satellite data, comprising high definition video, optical and hyperspectral imagery, that also can provide it with the precise position of Indian Army camps across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

Intelligence sources said that Pakistan has entered into a contract with China to procure Jilin-1 satellite data for 2020.

The Jilin constellation comprises a network of ten satellites in orbit with the capability of global coverage and it can revisit any location twice a day. “Resolution of panchromatic image provisioned by Jilin-1 is 0.72 m and the multi-spectral image is 2.88 m,” a source said.

Jilin is China’s commercial remote sensing satellite run by the Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co. Ltd.


In 2019, Pakistan had purchased data of the advanced land observation satellite phased array type L Band synthetic aperture radar and Jilin-1, sources said.

It has stated that it is procuring data for land and resources surveying, monitoring of natural disasters, agriculture research, urban construction and other activities.

In 2018, China had launched two remote sensing satellites for Pakistan, claiming that it would monitor the progress of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The satellites — PRSS-1 and PakTES-1A — were launched using a Long March-2C rocket.

A network of infrastructure projects that are currently under construction throughout Pakistan that will connect China’s Xinjiang province with the Gwadar port in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, giving China an opening to the Arabian Sea, the 3,218-kilometre CPEC, a dream project of Chinese President Xi Jinping in which China has sunk about $19 billion, runs along the disputed area of Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).