‘Under the PLA’s watchful eye’: Taiwan warned of military tracking as Beijing sends up more satellites
- Taiwan’s defence ministry makes unusual move of noting mainland satellites, but appeals for calm ahead of January elections
- Experts warn any satellite can be ‘converted to military use’ and Taipei must assume its movements are being watched by the PLA
The first one went up on Monday – an Egyptian remote sensing satellite sent on a flight path across the Indian Ocean into orbit from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert in northwest China.
Two more satellites – the Tianyan 16 meteorological satellite equipped with a microwave detection system, and Starpool 1A, a remote sensing satellite – followed a day later aboard a Ceres-1 Y9 rocket launched from the Jiuquan centre and flying over the Indian Ocean.
And on Wednesday, a test communications satellite was sent into low orbit via a Smart Dragon 3 carrier rocket. Flying over the South China Sea, the rocket was launched through a sea platform from waters off the coast of Yangjiang in the southern province of Guangdong, Xinhua reported.
It urged the public to remain calm and said the rocket launches posed “no threat” to the island.