Up in the sky…it’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s a Chinese spy blimp

[lizkat]

China silly.

“In these circumstances, for the United States to insist on using armed force is clearly an excessive reaction that seriously violates international convention,” the statement said. “China will resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of the enterprise involved, and retains the right to respond further.”

Sounds like a bot wrote it!

 

[AG_PhamD]

Weird somehow you quoted one of my old posts from the Russia thread in this thread? I think the forum got broken somehow as I’m 100% sure that was not your intention given your response and may not have been a deliberate result of your clicks.

@Eric - possible bug?

This has happened with people responding to my posts in the past too. I occasionally see some other weird glitches here.

Frankly, I'm surprised it took us this long. We're assuming that they knew how to jam it or what it was collecting if they waited this long but it was strange to just leave it floating around up there knowing it's from a foreign spy.

If I’m not mistaken, the only reason the military started talking about this incursion was because people on the ground could see it. Had it not been noticed by the public, I’m not sure we would have been told, at least in real time. There could be advantages to letting China think their mission had been successful. Regardless shooting it down over the ocean is a much safer option.

I did see an article that mentioned potential technical hurdles with shooting down a balloon due to its likely relatively small radar and thermal signatures and slow speed. Modern weapons/sensors are designed to ignore things that don’t fit the intended criteria. It’s possible they needed to rework some parameters to ensure the best chance of success.

The F-22 does have a 20mm rotary/gatling type gun.

Perhaps an inert Sidewinder missile with a data link back to the F-22 tracking radar was judged to produce a better outcome of preserving the balloon's payload.

I would have thought punching holes would easily take down a balloon, but read earlier today that in 1998 Canada had an off-course weather balloon they needed to bring down. It took two CF-18’s 1000 rounds and it still took days to descend- and this was at <35,000 ft.

I didn’t think about the physics until reading this story, but if you think about it, depending on the design, you wouldn’t necessarily have a significant pressure differential between the balloon and the atmosphere at altitude. So if you shot holes in it, the gas would not escape like one might expect.

To use the cannon they would ideally want to be above the balloon, especially if over land. Shooting upwards means bullets flying ballistically for miles, which is potentially dangerous.

The F-22 specs tend to say they have a service ceiling “over 50,000ft”. So who knows if it could get close enough for either case. Even if the F-22 could make it to 65,000ft (with sufficient fuel and weapons loaded), it would be extremely dangerous if the plane lost cabin pressure or an ejection was required. Plus there’s probably nearly zero ability to maneuver the plane to easily line it up for a shot at that altitude.

The F15 famously hit over 100,000ft, but that’s was in a modified plane with every last component possible stripped out of it, no weapons, probably just enough fuel, required full afterburner and following a totally optimized path, ignoring the inability to maneuver, etc- and that altitude was not at all maintainable. Aka not a real world scenario.

I too figured they’d use an inert warhead. I don’t know what AMRAM explosions are supposed to look normally using their fragmentation warheads. In the video there does appear to be a black cloud around the impact point. So maybe it was a live warhead?

I’m sure because of this the defense contractors will be just itching to sell the government a 65-100,000ft interceptor aircraft/drones.

Or maybe they can take the Tomahawk R9X cruise missile’s deployable “samurai swords” and put them on an AMRAM. Just to take out balloons.

 

[AG_PhamD]

China silly.

“In these circumstances, for the United States to insist on using armed force is clearly an excessive reaction that seriously violates international convention,” the statement said. “China will resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of the enterprise involved, and retains the right to respond further.”

Funny that the CCP has “retained its right to respond further”… I imagine that’s not a right they would never extend to their own citizens.

Not so long ago (2007) China insisted on using armed force to blow up their own defunct satellite in orbit, which violated international convention. I believe it’s still considered to have the most damaging consequences of all the ASAT missile tests. The debris from 2007 risks space assets for decades-centuries.

I think Blinken should respond by saying the US “safely collected the balloon to facilitate its return to it’s ‘legitimate’ owner, the CCP intelligence apparatus”.

After our intelligence agencies finish examining the recovered components, I propose we package them up with gift wrap and a bow, attach them to weather balloon, and deploy it to fly over mainland China.

 

[dada_dave]

Funny that the CCP has “retained its right to respond further”… I imagine that’s not a right they would never extend to their own citizens.

Not so long ago (2007) China insisted on using armed force to blow up their own defunct satellite in orbit, which violated international convention. I believe it’s still considered to have the most damaging consequences of all the ASAT missile tests. The debris from 2007 risks space assets for decades-centuries.

Yup

I think Blinken should respond by saying the US “safely collected the balloon to facilitate its return to it’s ‘legitimate’ owner, the CCP intelligence apparatus”.

After our intelligence agencies finish examining the recovered components, I propose we package them up with gift wrap and a bow, attach them to weather balloon, and deploy it to fly over mainland China.

And maybe add a couple of things like have it enable access to unrestricted internet to anyone on the ground … or maybe just broadcast the complete works of AA Milne …

 

[Eric]

China silly.

“In these circumstances, for the United States to insist on using armed force is clearly an excessive reaction that seriously violates international convention,” the statement said. “China will resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of the enterprise involved, and retains the right to respond further.”

The balls on these people, just WTF did they expect?

Beijing confirmed on Friday that the balloon was Chinese, but claimed that it was primarily used for meteorological research and had been blown off course.

"Oops, our balloon accidentally blew 7200 miles off course and somehow ended up over your most secure military installations".

 

[Citysnaps]

I imagine the US had already made high resolution photos of the beam hanging below the balloon while it was in flight. And will soon make more photos after it's recovered from the ocean. It would be great if they're released to the public - just to get people stirred up a little regarding the incursion.

Speculating what might be on the beam (beyond solar panels): Various receivers and antennas, cameras - possibly stereoscopic and probably not GoPros , GPS, batteries and charge electronics, computer for control, communications to download intercepted data/photos and to upload new tasking. Perhaps there were was some things inside the balloon.

That's a lot of stuff. Or...maybe it's just a recording altimeter, thermometer and barometer.

 

[Roller]

In related news, an orange balloon was sighted over Beijing this morning.

 

[dada_dave]

Huh

 

[NT1440]

This was really low effort diversion.

The same week the US signed deal to finalize its complete encirclement of China (which is actual aggression) the American public are spoon fed, and lap up, a weeks long tale of a fucking balloon.

Pathetic. I know we have to manufacture consent for the upcoming war with China, but I didn’t realize just how easy it is at this point.

US secures deal on bases to complete arc around China - BBC News

Washington now has more access to Philippines military bases facing the South China Sea and Taiwan.

www.bbc.com

 

[Eric]

Huh

View attachment 21679

To be fair nobody else would make is MAGA hats.

 

[Nycturne]

Satellites are expensive and expensive to launch. Balloons are cheap and expendable. Of course there are many drawbacks to balloons - they pretty much move with air currents (though the recent Chinese balloon was said to be maneuverable - I don't know how and to what extent). But... it's very possible that drawback may work for Chinese broad-area survey signals collection objectives in the US.

Maneuvering is done by riding the air currents. With the ability to adjust altitude, you can at least follow a rough course by taking advantage of the fact that air currents change at different altitudes. Hot air balloon pilots use this technique, so it’s not a new idea.

 

[Citysnaps]

Maneuvering is done by riding the air currents. With the ability to adjust altitude, you can at least follow a rough course by taking advantage of the fact that air currents change at different altitudes. Hot air balloon pilots use this technique, so it’s not a new idea.

I know next to nothing about hot air balloons. But... isn't hot air balloon altitude regulated by hot air, generated by a propane gas-fired burner?

I did read in one Chinese balloon story that lateral maneuvering was accomplished by small propellers powered by electrical motors. No idea if that's true or not.

 

[Nycturne]

I know next to nothing about hot air balloons. But... isn't hot air balloon altitude regulated by hot air, generated by a propane gas-fired burner?

I did read in one Chinese balloon story that lateral maneuvering was accomplished by small propellers powered by electrical motors. No idea if that's true or not.

It is, but while the mechanism is different, the approach is the same. It’s not like we fly hot air balloons in the stratosphere either, but the same principles apply. I’m not sure of the exact mechanisms they use on stratospheric balloons to adjust altitude (surprisingly hard to find good articles on that subject), but there’s a lot of work happening now on improving the computer systems that make the decisions for steering of these types of balloons, apparently.

In terms of probably one of the more reasonable stories speculating: https://arstechnica.com/science/202...ment-be-flying-a-large-stratospheric-balloon/

One of the folks Ars spoke to suggests that right now is not a great time to fly surveillance balloons over North America because you’ll get limited steering out of the air currents we get at this time of year. So the story that this is something launched and then China lost control of could very well be true (all the more reason to not “shoot it down on sight”, and instead try to recover it and figure out what it is and what it was doing).

 

[Citysnaps]

It is, but while the mechanism is different, the approach is the same. It’s not like we fly hot air balloons in the stratosphere either, but the same principles apply. I’m not sure of the exact mechanisms they use on stratospheric balloons to adjust altitude (surprisingly hard to find good articles on that subject), but there’s a lot of work happening now on improving the computer systems that make the decisions for steering of these types of balloons, apparently.

In terms of probably one of the more reasonable stories speculating: https://arstechnica.com/science/202...ment-be-flying-a-large-stratospheric-balloon/

One of the folks Ars spoke to suggests that right now is not a great time to fly surveillance balloons over North America because you’ll get limited steering out of the air currents we get at this time of year. So the story that this is something launched and then China lost control of could very well be true (all the more reason to not “shoot it down on sight”, and instead try to recover it and figure out what it is and what it was doing).

That was my point. How would it be able to maneuver, being a simple gas filled balloon.

That aside, there's no doubt in my mind it was a signals reconnaissance mission. And that we likely gained more intelligence observing the craft and its (presumably programmed) areas of interest (while sensitive systems were muted) than the Chinese did. Biden's (and the military's) decision was spot-on to take it down where it did.

I disagree with ars' assessment there's no information to be gleaned. There are many potential strategic low power signals of interest (SOIs) that could only be reasonably intercepted at lower altitudes due to inverse square law path loss, and the state of Chinese technology.

 

[Nycturne]

That was my point. How would it be able to maneuver, being a simple gas filled balloon.

With this level of electronics, it is hardly a “simple” balloon, and the control systems required to do this sort of thing have existed for a while now. I think one reason it’s difficult to find this information on Google is because it isn’t exactly “novel”, and a lot of people just don’t interact with these types of balloons, shoving the interesting stuff down the results list.

An example of one mechanism from a 2016 test in Oregon is described briefly here that looks like it is somewhat novel, but more in the sense that it might not need to burn through consumables: https://stratocat.com.ar/fichas-e/2016/BND-20160315a.htm

Another example from a NASA TechRise 2022 slide deck where students would be getting their experiments on existing stratospheric balloon providers: https://festorage.blob.core.windows.net/nasatechrise/files/nasatechrise2022-vehicle-slides.pdf

Using altitude control maneuvers like venting lift gas (causing the balloon system to descend) or dropping ballast (causing the balloon system to ascend), the flight engineer will find the best wind layer to steer the platform in the desired direction.

 

[Citysnaps]

With this level of electronics, it is hardly a “simple” balloon, and the control systems required to do this sort of thing have existed for a while now.

You misunderstood. Clearly it's not a simple balloon due to its overall objective and capabilities. It's simple in that it's gas filled.

 

[Nycturne]

You misunderstood. Clearly it's not a simple balloon due to its overall objective and capabilities. It's simple in that it's gas filled.

No, I don’t think I did. To me, it’s the control systems and being able to manage them via the electronics package that takes it out of the category.

That said, this is a very weird nitpick to chase after when the main question put forward was about the control systems available to these sort of balloons. Oh well, at least I learned something neat trying to figure out the answer.

 

[AG_PhamD]

The balls on these people, just WTF did they expect?


"Oops, our balloon accidentally blew 7200 miles off course and somehow ended up over your most secure military installations".

What are the chances this research balloon had no ADSB transponder (or that it was turned off), had no radar reflector, is filled to the brim with non-meteorological related sensors, and that China did not inform Canada or the US they potentially had an uncontrolled weather balloon heading for our border. Despite having been lost I’m sure it was happily pinging back date to Chinese satellites. Etc etc etc.

I’m sure the evidence will speak for itself… This most definitely was a research balloon.

Researching US military assets.

 

[Eric]

Biden offers to brief Trump team on Chinese spy balloons they failed to catch

Biden administration official reveals Trump officials weren’t even aware of China’s surveillance balloons at the time

www.independent.co.uk

Biden offers to brief Trump team on Chinese spy balloons they failed to catch​

Biden administration official reveals Trump officials weren’t even aware of China’s surveillance balloons at the time​

 

[Citysnaps]

Propellers and rudder for maneuvering according to a defense official.