Over the past year, Vietnam has accelerated its land reclamation program in the Spratly Islands, building out acreage and enlarging its military bases at a faster pace than any other claimant. At its largest facility on Barque Canada Reef, it has dug out a ship channel large enough to accommodate the largest existing destroyers and cruisers, according to a new paper released by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources. 

The paper, published in the latest edition of the Chinese-language Journal of Tropical Oceanography, describes a method to combine free data from American and European satellites to precisely chart out the depth of the channel – without the need for on-site surveying or permission from the base’s operator. NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite has laser sensing capabilities that can reach down to 30 meters below the surface, enabling depth detection with high precision. When combined with high-resolution optical imaging from the EU’s Sentinel satellite constellation, this laser data enables unauthorized charting of sensitive installations like Vietnam’s newly-built naval base.  

According to the ministry’s measurements, the channel has enough depth to accommodate warships up to the size of the PLA Navy’s Type 055 destroyers, which draw about 22 feet of water….