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New Delhi: Pakistan has increased its space surveillance power manifold by launching a series of six Earth Observation (EO) satellites in the last one and a half year. These EO or spy satellites can be used by Pakistan to keep an eye on India’s borders, army deployment and military assets.Pak launches 6 satellites in one year; Expert warns, it can be used for spying on IndiaAlthough the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) was established in 1961, Pakistan launched its first satellite only in 1990. Even payloads launched with the help of foreign launchers over the past several decades were less than a dime a dozen. However, between January 2025 and April 2026, Pakistan surprisingly launched six EO satellites, mostly with the help of Chinese rockets.The six EO satellites, launched by SpaceX-Falcon 9 on January 14, 2025, are Pakistan Air University PAUSAT-1; Pakistan Remote Sensing Satellite-Earth Observation 1 (PRSC-EO1) launched by China’s Long March-2D rocket on January 17, 2025; PRSS-2 EO by a Chinese rocket on July 31, 2025; Hyperspectral satellite HS-1 by China’s Long March on October 19, 2025; PRSC-EO2 launched by China’s Smart Dragon-3 on February 12, 2026; and PRSC-EO3 by the Chinese Long March-6 on April 25 this year.Group Captain Ajay Ahlawat (retd), now a defense analyst, told TOI, “There is no mystery about these satellites as all payload launches are recorded with ITU (International Telecommunication Union). We (India) also do not miss out. These EO satellites have been designed to see things in more detail and have improved Pakistan’s visibility over Indian territory for at least 3-4 years. In contrast, India has not been able to launch a single surveillance satellite in the last one year. Our payload is ready. But there is no rocketry system. After several recent failures, ISRO is worried and not confident about successful launches.“Our NavIC system has also become vulnerable as only three navigation satellites are in space against the requirement of minimum four, forcing our strategic forces to depend on foreign navigation systems like GPS and GLONASS for missile navigation,” the defense expert said. Group Captain Ahlawat (Retd) suggested that until ISRO fixes its rocket problems, India should get its payloads that are critical for major space missions to be launched from friendly space agencies like Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana or Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome.Rear Admiral Sudhir Pillai (Retd), also a defense analyst, recently said in his blog, “When the EO-3 satellite is passing over South Asia in daylight, the PRSC-S1 is passing over the same geography in darkness, and vice versa. Since the optical satellite requires daylight and the SAR satellite does not, both satellites together provide what cannot be achieved alone, in the entire 24-hour cycle of the South Asian theatre. Compressed revision cycles approaching persistence in operational terms.“Writing about India’s satellite plans, Pillai further wrote, “India’s Space-Based Surveillance Phase-III program – SBS-3 – approved in October 2024 and accelerated after Operation Vermillion, envisages a constellation of 52 surveillance satellites to be deployed in the second half of this decade. The intention is good, but the sequencing problem is acute: China’s already dense military satellite network and the overhead ISR threat from this China-enabled Pakistani constellation are now operational, While the first launches of SBS-3 are only expected to begin around 2026 and full deployment is generally not anticipated before 2029.“