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New Delhi: A rocket launch shrouded in mystery on the Himalayan plateau has caught the attention of space powers. According to investigations by portal Intelligence Online, the launch was from Aksai Chin which is occupied by Beijing.
On September 27, 2023, Washington tracked a secret test firing of a Chinese space launcher from a site in Aksai Chin. China’s Long March rockets have carried out almost all of the country’s space launches. The Long March series completed 307 successful launches through 2019.
India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, is pushing for greater US support in Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, the Indian territories bordering China that Beijing claims to be its own. In Feb 2023 Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley from Oregon and Republican Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee collaborated on a Senate resolution which affirms the United States’ recognition of Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state, as an integral part of the Republic of India.
In December 2022, the US government for the first time provided real-time details to its Indian counterparts of the Chinese positions and force strength in advance of a PLA incursion. The information included actionable satellite imagery and was more detailed and delivered more quickly than anything the US had previously shared with the Indian military.
This led to a fuming Chinese Communist Party leadership asking its military to shore up land grab of Indian territory to an unprecedented level, but Indian Army has scaled up border tech surveillance to avert any such Chinese adventure by silently collaborating for sensors, surveillance cameras, satellite imagery and drone tech with the US Army.
The recent UFO sighting in the Manipur above Imphal airport may be a well-designed Chinese surveillance operation to assess the level of preparation India is making to protect its territory in the Northeast. Washington tracks Chinese army’s secret Himalayan space launch base in Aksai Chin territory of India under illegal Chinese Control. The base is in Aksai Chin from which CAS Space carried out a test launch on September 27, 2023.
China has ramped up the construction of reinforced personnel bunkers and underground facilities in Aksai Chin, at a location about 70 km from the Line of Actual Control (LAC), to better protect its military assets from aerial or missile strikes, according to an analysis of satellite imagery provided by the US based MAXAR Technologies which was also used by the US Government for its spy satellite intel till this year before Maxar Technologies delisted from the wall street due to its acquisition by the Boston investment fund Advent International putting a question mark over the famed Spy Intel firm’s future.
Shortwave infrared imagery from Maxar’s WorldView-3 satellite can see through smoke to pinpoint active fire lines for first responders. The satellite imagery from August 18, 2023, provided by the Maxar Technologies, clearly depicts the evolving Chinese posture in Aksai Chin, include the development of underground facilities.
