Arms Control Wonk:
The end of the year has been hectic, and I would forgive you if you missed a Bill Gertz article from earlier this month about preparations for an anti-satellite/missile defense test in China at the Korla Missile Test Base. I almost missed the story, but I’m especially glad that I didn’t. As we finally end 2016, it gives me the opportunity to talk about one of the highlights of the year for me: working with imagery from small satellites, in particular imagery from our friends at Planet Labs.
The December 9th article, based on information from unnamed Pentagon officials, notes that
“test preparations for the Dong Neng-3 anti-satellite missile were detected at a military facility in central China.”
Satellite imagery should be able to confirm such details. I don’t have it in my budget at the moment to buy a high-resolution satellite image, but as it turns out I don’t need to buy high-resolution imagery for this purpose. Comparing moderate resolution images for changes can sufficiently show preparations for a test.
The Gertz article specifies that preparations were observed at a military facility in central China. This could mean the Korla facility, which as I’ve written about before is the main test facility associated with the development of the DN-3 hit-to-kill vehicle. Perhaps I’m splitting hairs, but I don’t really consider Korla to be central China. However, we know from past tests that the test targets come from a launch facility near Jiuquan (41.280468°, 100.304501°), which seems much more like central China to me.
