Probable! Chinese Collection of u.s., Satellite Imagery.

Transcription

1 DATE MAR 200 [bun [b][3 " '. l' ". ' '. ~ ". ' \ ' ; ; ;.. ; " J ;. J \ ~ f.. '.. /... ; ". Probable Chnese Collecton of u.s. Satellte magery. J. ; ; ) ~ " > ~ CA/ BG RP 74 August 973

2 '4 ~ r... "_.'_..;-..r-'.. ".-... r.. tc ) ' " ; f '-'JPfROVEDDR REllSE DATE MAR "'-..- -oj..."""""'" ~ \~; ~ ; ~"Qlo...c.." d Cl n (" " ; l '. () < rtl n ' EXTENT OF ERTS COVERAGE REQUESTED

3 MOR DocD DATE MAR 200 Central ntellgence Agency Drectorate of ntellgence August 973 j -~~~ PROBABLE CHNESE COLLECTON OF US SATELLTE MAGERY. A recent order for US Earth Resources Technology Sat2lte (ERTS) magery ndcates a strong lkelhood that the PRe s attemptng to explot the satete ' s reconnassance potental. n a seres of letters to the Soux Falls ERTS Data Center a on behalf of an undentfed cle coverage that ncludes Chna and neghborng countres to a dstance of about 000 mles from the Chnese border {see map}. The hypothess of a Chnese clent s supported by revew of prevous actvtes of the who orgnatedthe ERTS orde)'. Ea~stgatons gong backto the late 950's revealed that acqured nformaton on the US on behalf of several C~ countres. Th~se ncluded US cvl defense plans for an East European agent and a seres of US patents for the PRC. 2. Tl s Co e'ct on act v ty f ts a patt ern the P RC. has followed over the past several years. Durng ths od they have used numerous nternatonal to collect aconsderable varety of products that would be useful to mss; e target ng programs. Order lsts have ncluded topographc gravty aeromagnetc and.hydrographc maps and charts. Largescale topographc.map~ are requested most frequently wth ~ Comnents and ques'tonc may be d'pected to llllf az;bc and Geogpaphc ntel

4 DATE MAR 20~ '. up to $5OOO~per sheet beng offered for coverage of the USSR near the Chna border. Several PRC orders durng 97 and 972 requested US publcatons on remotesensng of' the env ronment. 3. The suspected PRC ERTS order s elaborated n a seres of at least sx 'letters to the Data Center bethl~en September 972 and July 973. The frst nqurts re" sted general nfo~mat on on tle types of ERTS products ava able' and on orderng procedures. A follow-up letter n October 972 stated that~ as the quantty of data s very large the clent wshed to obtan a sample of each avalable product before makng a decson on quantty ang type of data to be ordered. n reply the Data Center selected a representatve ERTS scene and provded a sample of each of the 52 products avalable from a sngle mage. 4. Followng study of the sample products the clent submtted hs full order n Apr'll 973. _requested a cvmplete set of allsatellte coverage of the area outlned on the accompanyng map. The order specfes four 9 x 9-nch transparences of each scene representng each of the four bands maged' by the ~atellte's Hultspectra Scanner (r~ss). m~ges wth more than 0 percent cloud cover are not wanted and the best qualty mage s to.be provded where there s repet t ve coverage_ '. ' ' 5. The us reply lsted avalable satellte coverage of the specfed area at that tme. t conssts 'of ' approxmately 3000 mages each coverng an area of about' 00 x 00 mles.' Muth of the western clnd southern portons of the area'has rep~ttve and cloud~free coverage. n some of the eastern and northern portons coverage s ar.k ng or s too heavly clouded. ; " 6. Subsequent corre5pondenc'e shows sorre confuson ~' over selecton of the mages to be rocessed and a tone of' urgency on the part of the A letter n July 973 contaned paylmn 0 atng that ' the clent beleves nearly BOO of the lsted mages meet hs selecton crtera. Ths number of scenes gnorng overlap would cover' approxmately one half of the area - 2

5 DATE ~AR 200 shown on the map. On 20 July the Data Center acknowledged recept of the check and Dgan asked for clarfcaton of the exact procedure for selecton of mages from the lst. 7. Although the prmary applcaton of ERTS data ;s for earth resource surveys ~ the ordered mages could be used by the PRC nt~ mssle targetng programs. They would be partcularly valuable for dentfcaton and -.- pos.-t.-qj---n~g.f-sj)eg--f---6-ta-f e-ts----n-the-ss-r_whe-re-the-pr~c" has pr0bably had lmted success n acqurng adequate j maps. Evenj\'here maps have been acqured ERTS products would add to ther nformaton content and would provde a check on post on~l accuraces. j J " ; ;.. 8. The capablty for geodetcally postonng photodentfable targets from ERS ~SS mages vares n relaton to the avalablty of supplementary data. Avalablty of photo-dentfable.ground control and/or large scale maps allows postonng of targets to an accuracy of about 50 meters on the local coord nate system. At the opposte extrerre ~/here postonng/s based solely on an ERTS mage wthout ground control 0' orb tal nfonnat 'Jn from satell te tapes errors m~ be a~ large as 2000 ncters. A thrd ntermedate stuaton would probably apply to a PRC attempt to geodet;cally pos; ton targets such tls those located to the north of Ch na up to a dstance of at least 000 klometers from the border. Ths would nvolve usng photogranttetrc. brdgng technques to extend control from Ch na nto the US'~ and Hongol a along a seres of photogrnphs from the same orbt. 9. Ta~get de~tfcaton usng bulk-processed MSS.' mages s lmted by ts ground resoluton of 00 meters or more. Urban areas ports arfelds and smlar; large targets can generally be dentfed. Collateral would assst n de~tfcaton of smaller facltes. At least a 00 percent Jmprovement n mage resoluton could; be effected by obta;n ng the data on magnet c tapes and '; dgtally enhancng lselected prorty mages. Although "; the Chnese have recently dsplayedja consderable amount ; of nterest n mage-enhancen~nt technques the tape data are not routnely avalable and were not ncluded n the _order.; ".. t - 3..