BlackSky Releases Imagery of Near-Complete Chinese Military Naval Station in Cambodia

BlackSky Technology Inc. (NYSE: BKSY) released a ten-image collection captured over Ream, Cambodia, showing the rapid pace of development of a large Chinese military naval station from August 2021 until July 2023. The high-resolution, electro-optical images are part of a collection of more than 520 images captured from October 2019 until now and contains time-diverse imagery taken as early as 8 a.m., and as late as 7:58 p.m., Indochina Time.

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BlackSky released a ten-image collection captured over Ream, Cambodia, showing the rapid pace of development of a large Chinese military naval station from August 2021 until July 2023. The high-resolution, electro-optical images are part of a collection of more than 520 images captured from October 2019 until the now and contains time-diverse imagery taken as early as 8 a.m., and as late as 7:58 p.m., Indochina Time. (Imagery: BlackSky) Editorial Note: In this graphical sequence, the images from December 22, 2022 and June 27, 2023 were augmented with elements from other BlackSky imagery at the southwest and northwest corners, respectively, to provide a complete picture and preserve the clarity of the visual.

“BlackSky’s unique ability to capture and quickly deliver large volumes of dawn-to-dusk, time-diverse imagery increases transparency into strategic military and economic activities that otherwise would have gone unnoticed,” said Brian E. O’Toole, BlackSky CEO. “Our commercial high-frequency monitoring satellite constellation and AI-driven tasking and analytics platform gives our customers the on-demand ability to observe critical change over time."

“The speed of development at the Ream base makes it difficult to deny the intentional velocity behind China’s overseas basing initiatives,” said Craig Singleton, China Program deputy director and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Cambodia’s receptivity to hosting China’s second overseas naval port increases Beijing’s strategic ability to project military power into the Indian Ocean.”

“There is a near-exact similarity between an angled deep-water pier located on the western shore of the Ream base and another military pier at the People’s Liberation Army Support Base in Djibouti. Both main piers are 363 meters long and large enough to support any ship in China’s naval arsenal, including the new 300-meter-long Type 003 Fujian aircraft carrier,” Singleton said.