It is irritating, especially as the article is not clear about what contribution space technology made. It seems that satellite images revealed that the system was larger and more sophisticated than known beforehand, and, given that the images are available, it is presumably at least a much cheaper and faster way to find this out than an extensive ground survey.
Poor wording. It is not that using wing tunnel pressure to pump water is space tech. But that only seen from space they could map it to the civilization for context.
If tomorrow all humans and humans artifacts disappear except the great china wall, an alien will be very confused why it exists, not how it was built.
Happens a lot on articles about non-western civilizations technological advancements. The writers -of this articles- assume that western technology is the best/most advanced (most probably without malice) and the others' are just cute or magical.
Right, and if some secondary source called out the fact that they are still in use and these guys are idiots then at least the original article would have made the sin of omission, and not the sin of outright contradicting yourself.
"Could only be solved using space technology"
"Some of the wells are still operating today"