Science

PRSC-EO1

Earth Observation · SUPARCO (Pakistan)

Three days apart in January 2025, Pakistan put two satellites into orbit on rockets from two different superpowers — and the second was the one it had been waiting for. PAUSAT-1 rode a SpaceX Falcon 9 on January 14. On January 17, a Chinese Long March 2D lifted PRSC-EO1 off from Jiuquan while staff at SUPARCO's headquarters in Karachi watched the launch broadcast live. Pakistan's previous remote-sensing satellite, PRSS-1, had been built in China; PRSC-EO1 was billed as the country's first domestically produced observation satellite. Its electro-optical camera captures multispectral imagery as sharp as about one meter, for crop monitoring, urban planning, disaster response and tracking natural resources. It was also the first of a planned three-satellite optical series — and the start of the fastest buildout in Pakistan's space history. A radar satellite followed six months later, and by April 2026 the optical trio was complete. PRSC-EO1 was the moment Pakistan started watching itself with its own eyes.