In a notable display of reconnaissance capabilities, a Chinese satellite has observed an American satellite that was itself monitoring China\u2019s space station and high-value satellite, a move analysts described as a strategic tit-for-tat in an increasingly contested space domain.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s Jilin-1 satellite constellation, operated by Chang Guang Satellite Technology, seized a favourable orbital window on September 8 to capture four images of the WorldView Legion satellite from distances ranging between 40 and 50km (31 miles).<\/p>\n
Published last Saturday on the company\u2019s official social media account, the pictures marked the first time Chang Guang had made public such dynamic space-based imagery.<\/p>\n
The incident follows a social media post by US commercial remote sensing company Maxar Intelligence in early July, featuring images of China\u2019s Shijian-26 satellite taken by its own high-resolution WorldView Legion satellite on June 3.<\/p>\n
Those photographs, captured from distances of 29km and 74km with resolutions of 1.9cm and 4.9cm respectively, revealed the satellite\u2019s structure in sharp detail.<\/p>\n
Susanne Hake, general manager at Maxar Intelligence\u2019s US government business, said the Shijian-26 represented China\u2019s newest generation of optical reconnaissance satellites and that the clarity of the imagery signalled a new era in orbital observation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a notable display of reconnaissance capabilities, a Chinese satellite has observed an American satellite that was itself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[97440,144,50639,97439,97444,97442,79,97441,193,1513,19161,52731,31602,21,97443,97445],"class_list":{"0":"post-160155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-chang-guang-satellite","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-chinese-foreign-ministry","11":"tag-jilin-1-satellite-constellation","12":"tag-maxar","13":"tag-military-space-force","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-shijian-26-satellite","16":"tag-space","17":"tag-spacex","18":"tag-starlink-satellites","19":"tag-tiangong-space-station","20":"tag-u-s-space-force","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-worldview-legion-satellite","23":"tag-zhao-lijian"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}