Satellites Track Chinese Aircraft Carrier In South China Sea

The vastness of the ocean is easily underestimated. Even a ship as large as an aircraft carrier is hard to find, it is the classic needle in a haystack problem. Until recently it was only viable for the best equipped navies. Spy planes, submarines, military satellites and communications intercepts are among the tools of the trade, and they do not come cheap. But today a revolution is happening in Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) meaning that you do not have to have a navy to do it. This has been amply demonstrated by analysts who have been tracking a Chinese aircraft carrier as it maneuvers far out to sea. And they did it via commercially available satellite imagery.

The satellite images are reminiscent of the photographs taken by scout planes in World War Two. You can see the carrier and its escorts. If you look closely you can trace the wake of the ships. You can determine speed, heading and make inferences about the operational context.

So how do you find a specific ship far out to sea? Unlike civilian ships the carrier was not broadcasting its position on AIS (Automated Identification System). Many ships use AIS in order to avoid collisions so it is a go-to for OSINT analysts. Warships however, use it selectively as it can be used by adversaries to track movements. So it is no surprise that the carrier group was not on AIS.

And the analysts did not have a fleet of scout planes to call upon. But they did have access to a range of commercial satellite imagery, some of it freely on the internet. So the solution was elementary: if an aircraft carrier leaves a port at x miles per hour… yes, you get the idea.

Using a range of analytical techniques, underpinned by time-distance calculations and informed guesswork, the analysts have been able to plot the ship’s course. As it cross-crosses the paths of commercial satellites, they proved that they could find the needle in a haystack. And not just once, but repeatedly.

They picked it up on April 10 around 380 miles (330 nautical miles) after it left Qingdao, China. They continued to plot its course south, sharing another pinpoint location on April 21, this time in the South China Sea. The analysts have shared additional details of its voyage with me so I can confident that it was not dumb luck. .

Satellite tracking in this way is imperfect, but so is every method of gathering intelligence. Yet this demonstrates that Open Source intelligence is coming of age. And the expertise to analyse it, even find an aircraft carrier in the open ocean, has been democratized.