Chinese spy balloon floating over the US

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PMN1 said:
Story doing the rounds that at least three ballons entered US airspace during Donald Trumps time at the White House and nothing was done.
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Citation Needed. Specifically, "citation that that actually happened."

This balloon was visible to the *naked* *civilian* *eye.* If China had floated balloons over the US before, they would have been spotted, and had they done so during the Trump administration,t he media would have been *all* over that story.

So... evidence that it occurred, or add it to the pile of nonsense stories.
 
So have you been able to do your Sidewinder road trip, @Magi ?

On another note concerning yesterday's shootdown of the PRC spy-balloon it turns out an AIM-9X was used,, here's a video about it:


Given how high up the balloon was the fighter that shot it down was an F-22A Raptor.

Edit: It would appear that the AIM-9X used to shoot it down had no live warhead (Perhaps a telemetry package instead) as they only needed to puncture the balloon's envelope (In that case they could've used the Raptor's M-61 cannon instead).
 
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I don't understand the celebration over this. They let it loiter over the CONUS at will, then when it was shot down by the USAF completely destroyed over water, and they used a missile? Why not shoot it down with a low speed pass and minimal cannon shots at the top of the Balloon to try and recover the Gondola over land, or a slow decent over water to be recovered. At least make the effort to recover it.
 
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This from 1998 crossed my path last night, https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb
Canada Research Balloon Floats Away
August 29, 1998

OTTAWA (AP) _ A runaway weather balloon floating toward Britain over the North Atlantic is proving a tough target for some of Canada’s top guns.
The helium-filled balloon, a 25-story high unmanned research station used to measure ozone levels over Canada, was launched Monday from Vanscoy, Saskatchewan.
Instruments attached to the balloon were supposed to separate from it at the end of the test Monday, said Dale Sommerfeldt, vice president of Scientific Instrumentation Ltd. of Saskatoon, which coordinated the launch.
``The termination device failed and the backup system failed and that’s why the balloon is where it is right now,″ he said.
Jet fighters trying to bring the balloon down fired more than 1,000 rounds into it Thursday, but it remained aloft. The air force hopes the now-leaking balloon will eventually come down.

...
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kcran567 said:
I don't understand the celebration over this.
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American psychology. The thinking pattern "America rules the skies, and would always be able to defeat Bad Guys clumsy efforts" is deeply rooted in American culture. So the situation when anything defy this pattern cause a severe distress. The destruction of the intruder (pretty much pointless, since it obviously already transmitted the data) is just a way to reassure themselves that "yeah, everything is still okay".

kcran567 said:
Why not shoot it down with a low speed pass and minimal cannon shots at the top of the Balloon to try and recover the Gondola over land, or a slow decent over water to be recovered
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Because it's a high-altitude balloon. On such altitudes, fighters are rather clumsy, and attempt to make a firing pass could result in a collision. Also, it isn't slow; if it moved in jetstream, it could fly as fast as 300-400 kmh (max).

Also, the gun shells would most likely not explode, after hitting the thin envelope. It require extremely sensitive fuses, and average 20-mm cannon fuses aren't sensitive enough. So the best Vulcan cannon could do, is to punch a few very small holes in a very big envelope. It wouldn't cause any noticeable increase in leakage from balloon.
 
And then this crossed my path the day before, https://arstechnica.com/science/202...ment-be-flying-a-large-stratospheric-balloon/

The information below is based on public statements, other news reports, and an interview with a stratospheric balloon expert, Andrew Antonio, whose company, Urban Sky, is developing the world’s first reusable stratospheric balloons for remote sensing.
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So the Chinese launched this balloon to spy directly on the United States?

Probably not. The Chinese would have known that sending a clearly observable balloon into the US heartland would be a provocative action, and they are unlikely to have done so on purpose.

The most likely scenario, Antonio believes, is that the termination mechanism, which is used to bring down a balloon at the end of its desired flight time, failed. Typically a stratospheric balloon will have one or more backup termination mechanisms, but a technical problem would explain why a balloon launched in China days or weeks ago could have eventually drifted into the United States. (The Chinese government may not want to admit this technical failure publicly.) The prevailing currents in the stratosphere would appear to support this theory of a drifting balloon the Chinese government had lost control of.

The time to fly such a balloon, for spying purposes, would be during the summer months, Antonio said. That's because during the winter the winds throughout the stratosphere are much more uniform in the Northern Hemisphere. This means that raising and lowering the balloon would provide very little steering capability. "Controlled stratospheric flight is a thing, but it's not something you can really do over the United States at this time of year," Antonio said.
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Dilandu said:
kcran567 said:
Why not shoot it down with a low speed pass and minimal cannon shots at the top of the Balloon to try and recover the Gondola over land, or a slow decent over water to be recovered
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Because it's a high-altitude balloon. On such altitudes, fighters are rather clumsy, and attempt to make a firing pass could result in a collision. Also, it isn't slow; if it moved in jetstream, it could fly as fast as 300-400 kmh (max).

Also, the gun shells would most likely not explode, after hitting the thin envelope. It require extremely sensitive fuses, and average 20-mm cannon fuses aren't sensitive enough. So the best Vulcan cannon could do, is to punch a few very small holes in a very big envelope. It wouldn't cause any noticeable increase in leakage from balloon.
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Agreed, although not cannon rounds, see the “Battle of Palmdale” to understand the utter mess that can be made of a “controlled” shoot down.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Battle of Palmdale - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

And it could have been so much worse;- the fire started on the ground by the ordinance shot by the intercepting aircraft;- “The fires reached within 300 feet (91 m) of the Bermite Powder explosives plant.”
 
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Dilandu said:
kcran567 said:
I don't understand the celebration over this.
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American psychology. The thinking pattern "America rules the skies, and would always be able to defeat Bad Guys clumsy efforts" is deeply rooted in American culture. So the situation when anything defy this pattern cause a severe distress. The destruction of the intruder (pretty much pointless, since it obviously already transmitted the data) is just a way to reassure themselves that "yeah, everything is still okay".
Click to expand...

You are not wrong. With luck, this will be a "teachable moment." Along with other World Events That Shall Not Be Named, this sort of thing should ("should") spur the US government to re-invest in a massive armaments modernization and buildup program. The wolf has come down from the north, and our fat little town is safe no longer.
 
China seems to have found an effective military use for a very old technology. Reminds one of the WW2 Ballloon bombs. The Chinese could fit hundreds of Balloons with various EMP, Nuclear, or Biological devices for relative low cost. Just another tool in their arsenal. Pentagon has an astounding budget, and countries like Russia and China are finding cheaper methods.

That Balloon was hangin' 16 current Gen solar panels so it could put out some serious power. Suppossedly had the ability to maneuver with fans/thrusters.

Too bad we'll never know for sure since it was obliterated by the Aim-9x.

Pentagon might've been more worried about civilians finding it, rather than any "danger or loss of life from debris over land"
they wanted to talk as little as possible about details in the press conferences.

Biden should have given the order to down it before it entered US airspace. And they could have at least attempted a less damaging strafe of the balloon.
 
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It could have been the one end of a bistatic radar. Or a calibration test for an OTH radar system.

Could had it discard its propulsive system at the end of its long journey before entering the US?
 
There are a lot of things it could have done:
- really good low altitude pictures
- some form of cyber spying / attack which exploited close proximity to receivers
- recovering information from a low-power pre-positioned (passive?) spy device
- stealthy drone deployment with some spy payload

I don't think anything useful will be found from the wreckage. The Chinese must be overjoyed at the balloons success and would have designed it to be recovered by the US.

Or the balloon wasn't doing any spying at all - at least past Montana. China would shoot down any US balloon it caught, so, if reasoned that the US would act as they did, China would not expect the balloon to survive very long. The second half of the trip may just have been a lark.
 
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kcran567 said:
China seems to have found an effective military use for a very old technology. Reminds one of the WW2 Ballloon bombs. The Chinese could fit hundreds of Balloons with various EMP, Nuclear, or Biological devices for relative low cost.
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FYI: You could in theory dangle a nuke from a balloon (it's have to be a *big* balloon, as nukes are heavy), but you won't get much EMP value from it. You need to be *above* the atmosphere for the gamma rays to thwack the upper atmosphere and set off the Compton effect. Set it off *in* the atmosphere and the immediate fireball of superheated air largely absorb the gamma rays. You'll get *some* EMP effect, but it'll be quite localized, a few miles in radius perhaps. Not an effective weapons system.
 
From the General Mills site:

"General Mills could not reveal that it had begun working with the U.S. government to develop balloons that could carry as much as 250 pounds of equipment into the upper atmosphere. During unmanned "Project Skyhook," General Mills developed improved plastic balloons that seemingly scraped the stars at around 100,000 feet.

"The manned flights that followed contributed to space flight. That was "Project Strato-Lab." One experiment proved that solar flare activity would be a risk to manned spacecrafts. Another venture contributed information about the earth's atmosphere.

"A partnership with the U.S. Navy, those flights began during 1946 and ran into the 1950s."
 
NMaude said:
So have you been able to do your Sidewinder road trip, @Magi ?

On another note concerning yesterday's shootdown of the PRC spy-balloon it turns out an AIM-9X was used,, here's a video about it:


Given how high up the balloon was the fighter that shot it down was an F-22A Raptor.

Edit: It would appear that the AIM-9X used to shoot it down had no live warhead (Perhaps a telemetry package instead) as they only needed to puncture the balloon's envelope (In that case they could've used the Raptor's M-61 cannon instead).
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I have heard that using an inert Sidewinder was a better bet, given the Americans wanted to retrieve as much of the balloon's onboard equipment intact. Bullets may well have risked hitting something sensitive.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Dilandu said:
kcran567 said:
I don't understand the celebration over this.
Click to expand...
American psychology. The thinking pattern "America rules the skies, and would always be able to defeat Bad Guys clumsy efforts" is deeply rooted in American culture. So the situation when anything defy this pattern cause a severe distress. The destruction of the intruder (pretty much pointless, since it obviously already transmitted the data) is just a way to reassure themselves that "yeah, everything is still okay".
Click to expand...

You are not wrong. With luck, this will be a "teachable moment." Along with other World Events That Shall Not Be Named, this sort of thing should ("should") spur the US government to re-invest in a massive armaments modernization and buildup program. The wolf has come down from the north, and our fat little town is safe no longer.
Click to expand...

1675645803918.png
 
It would be interesting to know when this slowish moving object was first tracked by the US authorities. It was quite large and travelled a long way from China across the Pacific to get to the USA.
The balloon and its payload were pretty ungainly and might well have had a civilian purpose and origin in China. Faced with a choice between screw up and conspiracy in events I go with screw up every time (for my friends outside Britain google "Liz Truss").
 
jeffb said:
"Balloon gap"
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Let 'em have balloons. I want weapons that can take out balloons quickly and cheaply. Not because balloons...but because they can take out *other* stuff quickly and cheaply. Practical truck-mounted railguns that could bullseye a balloon 100,000 feet up and two states away would be just the thing to use against hypersonic missiles; a drone-mounted laser that could do it by shooting "up" would be just the thing for securing the border by shooting *down."

Ands so long as adversaries are going to spy on us... let's give 'em something to spy on. Crank up F-35 production to ten a day. B-61 production resumption. Orion launch site in Bellingham. Boomer yards in Masachussetts and Florida and New Jersey and Iowa. A new supercarrier a year, ten cruisers a year, a dozen attack subs a year. Ten terawatt breeder reactors, one per Congressional district. Scrape out the Great Salt Lake, refill it via a vast pipe from the ocean. Terraform the southwest. There's no reason why we can't, every reason why we should. And our adversaries are only giving us more and more reason to be bold again.
 
Yeah, as the seeker would need to get enough signal to lock on.

At the altitude where the balloon operates, the air is cold with ambient temperature of some 174 degrees Kelvin. Thus the only "viable" IR radiation source would be the sun which "heats up" the balloon, the electronics and to some extent some amount of kinetic heating from the gust that pushing the balloon.

and as seen the Balloon is mostly white, which have low IR emmissivity and high reflectance, modern IR seeker using InSb (Indium Antimonide) may require more "signal" as their response dropped according to wavelength.

IR Detector.png

The graphics depict the sensitivity (denoted in Spectral detectivity or D* (dee-star) in Y axis ) vs wavelength. AFAIK AIM-9X was using InSb detector and the response dropped after 5 micron wavelength down to about 5*10^11. Thus shorter detection range.

The balloon itself which have temperature of that approximately 174 K emit most if not all of its IR energy at wavelength other than the peak response of the AIM-9X's InSb detector. This wavelength can be found by Wein's Displacement law :

lambda = 2898/temperature in Kelvin. Thus 2898/174 = 16.6 Micron. Which way beyond the peak sensitivity of the InSb detector.
 
SOC said:
That's from the DoD's 4 February press briefing:
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That old classic 'double edged sword' thing?
... I would also note that while we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon's collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon's overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us. I can't go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable.
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...
Our next question will go to Helene Cooper, New York Times.

Q: Hi. Thanks for doing this. First, I have two questions. First, I'd like to ask (inaudible) to please put (inaudible) opening statement on the record instead of on background. My other question is you mentioned that you — there was some value to the United States of tracking this balloon across the country. Can you go into a little bit more detail on what — what kind of — how that was valuable?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Yes, I'm going to very cautious here given the level of classification. I'll just say this. You know, much has been made over the last couple of days of what the PRC may or may not be learning as the surveillance balloon passed over U.S. territory. We think we bought down a lot of that risk through the mitigation measures that we took.

But — but I do think what has not been understood quite so much is that this actually provided us a number of days to analyze this balloon. And through a number of means, which I can't go into at this level of classification, learn a lot about what this balloon was doing, how it was doing it, why the PRC might be using balloons like this.

And so, you know, we haven't — we don't know exactly all the benefits that will derive. But we have learned technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities. And I suspect if we are successful in recovering aspects of the debris, we will learn even more. Over.
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Orionblamblam said:
jeffb said:
"Balloon gap"
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Let 'em have balloons. I want weapons that can take out balloons quickly and cheaply. Not because balloons...but because they can take out *other* stuff quickly and cheaply. Practical truck-mounted railguns that could bullseye a balloon 100,000 feet up and two states away would be just the thing to use against hypersonic missiles; a drone-mounted laser that could do it by shooting "up" would be just the thing for securing the border by shooting *down."

Ands so long as adversaries are going to spy on us... let's give 'em something to spy on. Crank up F-35 production to ten a day. B-61 production resumption. Orion launch site in Bellingham. Boomer yards in Masachussetts and Florida and New Jersey and Iowa. A new supercarrier a year, ten cruisers a year, a dozen attack subs a year. Ten terawatt breeder reactors, one per Congressional district. Scrape out the Great Salt Lake, refill it via a vast pipe from the ocean. Terraform the southwest. There's no reason why we can't, every reason why we should. And our adversaries are only giving us more and more reason to be bold again.
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2023, the year America lost its mind over a weather balloon.

facepalm-really.gif
 
uk 75 said:
It would be interesting to know when this slowish moving object was first tracked by the US authorities. It was quite large and travelled a long way from China across the Pacific to get to the USA.
The balloon and its payload were pretty ungainly and might well have had a civilian purpose and origin in China. Faced with a choice between screw up and conspiracy in events I go with screw up every time (for my friends outside Britain google "Liz Truss").
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They saw it over the Aleutians. Could have shot it down before it even got to Alaska.
 
jeffb said:
Orionblamblam said:
jeffb said:
"Balloon gap"
Click to expand...
Let 'em have balloons. I want weapons that can take out balloons quickly and cheaply. Not because balloons...but because they can take out *other* stuff quickly and cheaply. Practical truck-mounted railguns that could bullseye a balloon 100,000 feet up and two states away would be just the thing to use against hypersonic missiles; a drone-mounted laser that could do it by shooting "up" would be just the thing for securing the border by shooting *down."

Ands so long as adversaries are going to spy on us... let's give 'em something to spy on. Crank up F-35 production to ten a day. B-61 production resumption. Orion launch site in Bellingham. Boomer yards in Masachussetts and Florida and New Jersey and Iowa. A new supercarrier a year, ten cruisers a year, a dozen attack subs a year. Ten terawatt breeder reactors, one per Congressional district. Scrape out the Great Salt Lake, refill it via a vast pipe from the ocean. Terraform the southwest. There's no reason why we can't, every reason why we should. And our adversaries are only giving us more and more reason to be bold again.
Click to expand...

2023, the year America lost its mind over a weather balloon.

View attachment 692892
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"Weather balloon".

facepalm-worf.gif
 
SOC said:
That's from the DoD's 4 February press briefing: https://www.defense.gov/News/Transc...military-official-hold-an-off-camera-on-back/
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The more I re-read that, the more it seems like the reports there Wanted the balloon shot down over land.

And then my cynicism combines with my Dad's experience with the media during the cold war & with my own experience with and observations of the news media & the speculative side of my mind goes, "You know what it is, the reporters are deeply offended that there was no shootdown over land which caused civilian damage and casualties those reporters could then go and rake the by-definition evil military over the coals for."

That may well have me looking like some deranged tinfoil hat person, oh, well, I'm standing by my editorial.

And then as part of my general editorial I'll add these 1982 song lyrics, https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/donhenley/dirtylaundry.html

Don Henley Lyrics​



"Dirty Laundry"


I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something
Something I can use
People love it when you lose
They love dirty laundry

Well, I coulda been an actor
But I wound up here
I just have to look good
I don't have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundry

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em all around

We got the bubble headed
Bleached blonde
Comes on at five
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash
With a gleam in her eye
It's interesting when people die
Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation
Is the head dead yet
You know the boys in the newsroom
Got a running bet
Get the widow on the set
We need dirty laundry

You don't really need to find out
What's going on
You don't really want to know
Just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're stiff
Kick 'em all around

(Kick 'em when they're up)
(Kick 'em when they're down)
(Kick 'em when they're up)
(Kick 'em when they're down)

(Kick 'em when they're up)
(Kick 'em when they're down)
(Kick 'em when they're stiff)
(Kick 'em all around)

Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers
In everybody's pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry

We can do the innuendo
We can dance and sing
When it's said and done
We haven't told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry
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sferrin said:
jeffb said:
Orionblamblam said:
jeffb said:
"Balloon gap"
Click to expand...
Let 'em have balloons. I want weapons that can take out balloons quickly and cheaply. Not because balloons...but because they can take out *other* stuff quickly and cheaply. Practical truck-mounted railguns that could bullseye a balloon 100,000 feet up and two states away would be just the thing to use against hypersonic missiles; a drone-mounted laser that could do it by shooting "up" would be just the thing for securing the border by shooting *down."

Ands so long as adversaries are going to spy on us... let's give 'em something to spy on. Crank up F-35 production to ten a day. B-61 production resumption. Orion launch site in Bellingham. Boomer yards in Masachussetts and Florida and New Jersey and Iowa. A new supercarrier a year, ten cruisers a year, a dozen attack subs a year. Ten terawatt breeder reactors, one per Congressional district. Scrape out the Great Salt Lake, refill it via a vast pipe from the ocean. Terraform the southwest. There's no reason why we can't, every reason why we should. And our adversaries are only giving us more and more reason to be bold again.
Click to expand...

2023, the year America lost its mind over a weather balloon.

View attachment 692892
Click to expand...
"Weather balloon".

View attachment 692893
Click to expand...

Zero evidence or logic in claim that this was an intelligence gathering platform. Areas it flew over would be essentially random.

Sorry, it's just daft.
 
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jeffb said:
Zero evidence or logic in claim that this was an intelligence gathering platform. Areas it flew over would be essentially random.
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Yes, and? If the goal was to get photos of a specific map coordinate, sure, balloons are silly. But there are far more goals than that:
1) Recording radar signatures from ground transmitters.
2) Recording radar emissions form intercepting aircraft.
3) Recording all manner of electronic emissions, military and civilian.
4) Simply seeing what the US would do.

There are now claims that the Chinese have multiple balloons up now, multiple balloons int he past. A single spy balloon does little. blanket the skies with them and you can map the electronic emissions of a continent.
 
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