KWIC News November 4: On the excuse of facing the threat caused by the missiles of N. Korea, the ruling Free Democratic Party of Japan is considering spending 1.7 billion US dollars producing or purchasing four military reconnaissance satellites to enhance its capability of intelligence collection.There are indications that the Chinese army has also been paying more attention to the role the reconnaissance satellites play and has put the development of the "air space, intelligence, and earlier warning systems" as its priority for the 21st century. In addition, the Chinese army has made a certain breakthrough in the technology of the digital transmission reconnaissance satellites.
In the article entitled "China made an important breakthrough in the technology of the high-resolution digital image transmission", the Xinhua News Agency claimed on October 22 that the high-resolution digital image transmission equipment China had designed and made passed the national technical evaluation in Beijing. According to the Xinhua News Agency, the equipment can convert the digital image information into the visible images that are good for reading, research, and mapping. This equipment is of important economic and use value for the space remote control and geodetic survey of China. It can also be applied in the military field to help modernize the Chinese army.
The PLA scholars stress in various reports that it is necessary to set up the Earlier Warning system which consists of the reconnaissance satellites, AWACS, and ground-based radars. The scholars also suggest making all the above systems of the Chinese army into a network so that all the military services can access it and share the information. According to those reports, in the time of war, the reconnaissance satellite should have the capability of conducting all-time over the war zones. This demonstrates that the Chinese army will rely more on the reconnaissance satellites in the future. At present, the reconnaissance satellite is used only at the time that conditions permit its application. Chinese reconnaissance satellite is conducted only about one to two times a year obviously because the service life of the current reconnaissance satellite is short with each flight taking only around 16 days.
With the development of the digital transmission technology, it is possible that the digital reconnaissance satellites will be put into service after the year of 2000. It is expected that at that time, the reconnaissance satellite will be able to stay in the space longer and the system of the regular reconnaissance by the satellite will be initially formed (A. Pinkov) .
