Chinese "Spy Balloon" over CONUS.

originally posted by: Uphill
a reply to: putnam6 --- Putnam6 and everyone, ours *have* gone dark, and much more:


heathercoxrichardson.substack.com...

Basically, the CCP committed a major blunder in assuming that the Biden administration would continue previous administrations' difficulties in identifying CCP balloon overflights. Nope, US air security was tightened after Biden became US President.

I don't know who Heather Cox Richardson is but that's about the dumbest statement I've seen on the topic of the balloon.

Chinese Spy Balloon Carried Technology to Monitor Communication Signals: Official🎆

The Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States for days before being shot down could monitor communications signals, a U.S. official says.

“High resolution imagery from U-2 flybys revealed that the high-altitude balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations,” an official with the State Department, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Epoch Times.

“The high altitude balloon’s equipment was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons. It had multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications. It was equipped with solar panels large enough to produce the requisite power to operate multiple active intelligence collection sensors,” the official added.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: TheRedneck

As to your earlier comment about using ATC frequencies, which ones? Did they change as they crossed into different areas? VHF, UHF, or HF? All three?

Clearly UHF , That Balloon wouldn't use VHF and sure as hell wouldn't use HF.

It was being Guided by a Chinese Satellite over head no doubt about it.

What are you Americans getting riled up over... the US is doing the same thing to China... ffs 🤦🏻‍♂️

China has an extensive satellite network. In a Nov. 2022 report, the Defense Department said China’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance-capable (ISR) satellite fleet had more than 260 systems, second only to the U.S., as of the end of 2021. A senior defense official noted on Thursday that, for China, the balloon flying over Montana “has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective.

a reply to: Mantiss2021

I would suspect those propellers were there more for positioning the solar array than for actual propulsion, although they could have contributed to propulsion. A balloon has no fixed reference point; it spins around based on prevailing winds and associated eddy currents. By engaging fans at one end in one direction and those at the other end in the opposite direction, the apparatus could turn to face the solar panels toward the sun. This didn't even need be manually controlled; a control system could do this type of maneuver automatically.

Those fans would also have to be pretty weak. It wouldn't surprise me if the motors were similar in size to a motor found in a child's toy, just geared down to allow it to slowly spin the fan. High speed is not required since control is continuous. Fan blades and gearing can be made of very light material; motors cannot.

Carbon fiber would be used or the same reason: mass. Carbon fiber is lightweight and extremely strong, but it is not unbreakable or unbendable. 1/4" carbon fiber tubing holding together a structure of that size? Very, very fragile. Same with the attachment points; plastic attachments would have to be so large to handle the hinge stresses, they would likely contribute more to mass than a few aluminum bolts.

China has 3D printing technology. I have 3D printing technology, including using carbon fiber infused plastics! The carbon fiber filaments come from China.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: flice
What are you Americans getting riled up over... the US is doing the same thing to China... ffs 🤦🏻‍♂️

China has an extensive satellite network. In a Nov. 2022 report, the Defense Department said China’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance-capable (ISR) satellite fleet had more than 260 systems, second only to the U.S., as of the end of 2021. A senior defense official noted on Thursday that, for China, the balloon flying over Montana “has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective.

I don't live in China so I could care less about intrusions into their airspace by foreigners. As an American, and a spy aircraft is overhead, I will get upset. That's my business and you won't get any apologies for it.

a reply to: asabuvsobelow

Of course, but the comment that was in reply to was saying maybe they were using ATC frequencies to prevent us from jamming it. There are multiple ATC frequencies even in a given area, and they can use all three to transmit on, as long as the aircraft has all three. Probably 99% of all aircraft operate two of the three.

a reply to: Uphill --- everyone, if you have not have time yet to read the following news summary from this morning's (Thursday, February 9, 2023) Washington DC press conference given by US State Department Secretary Antony Blinken, that I posted on this ATS thread a few hours ago today, here are some of its' key points:

1. China has launched "dozens" of such surveillance balloons since 2018.

2. As soon as this most recent balloon entered US airspace, the US made certain the Chinese could not get information from it.

3. Both the US Senate and US House will receive classified briefings this week on the balloon and on Chinese intelligence.

Here is that News Summary once again:

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com...


Earlier in this thread, someone said that China may be in a negative economic position with regard to the global economy due to their lengthy lockdowns during these years of the COVID-19 pandemic. First of all, COVID-19 is still a dramatically increased threat to public health everywhere (per the continued elevated human death rate, elevated hospitalizations, potential new virus variants, limited curative power of all medications identified to date, etc.). Second, even leading international business publishers like The Economist and Bloomberg hesitate to quantify the "total cost" of COVID-19, hesitate to list countries in a "better" economic position at this point in the pandemic, on and on. Therefore, it may be far too early with COVID-19 to make any global economic assessments at all.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: asabuvsobelow

Of course, but the comment that was in reply to was saying maybe they were using ATC frequencies to prevent us from jamming it. There are multiple ATC frequencies even in a given area, and they can use all three to transmit on, as long as the aircraft has all three. Probably 99% of all aircraft operate two of the three.

I see , Yeah that would be very intelligent actually it would all but insure we wouldn't Attempt a Jam seeing as how it would disrupt our own ATC.

a reply to: asabuvsobelow

It wouldn’t in a big way though. There isn’t one generic frequency, so the balloon would have to switch to different ARTCCs as it crossed into their area of responsibility. And they could switch between any of the three, and put out a NOTAM not to use the one being jammed.

a reply to: Zaphod58

But are those ATC frequencies cleared for Data or just Voice would be my question ?

But again yes I could see them Hopping Frequencies considering there is only three to choose from it wouldn't be difficult to know which ones are being jammed.

originally posted by: asabuvsobelow

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: TheRedneck

As to your earlier comment about using ATC frequencies, which ones? Did they change as they crossed into different areas? VHF, UHF, or HF? All three?

Clearly UHF , That Balloon wouldn't use VHF and sure as hell wouldn't use HF.

It was being Guided by a Chinese Satellite over head no doubt about it.

Yes indeed it was guided by technology and not by the wind.

A Congressman briefed on the balloon this morning, said it stayed over our missile silos around North Dakota/Montana for 48 hours, before using a combo of wind currents and onboard steering mechanisms to move over Military locations in Nebraska and Kansas, before enabling the Jet Stream to take it away from the continental U.S..

Balloons... and now Chinese Space LASERS!
www.sciencealert.com...

Mysterious green lasers over the Hawaii Islands originate from a Chinese space satellite.

China claims the satellites are studying air pollution. 🤣

On January 28, a green laser was seen above the islands of Hawaii tracing a path towards the horizon. Footage of the laser was captured from a telescope atop Hawaii's tallest peak.

youtu.be...

a reply to: SrWingCommander

Forget balloons they are bringing out the freaking lasers.

www.sciencealert.com...

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a reply to: imitator

lol you beat me to it.

originally posted by: Creep Thumper
a reply to: Mantiss2021

Bah. Send a message. Blow it out of the sky. I'm sick of the US acting like a pussy.

Pretend Leader JOE BIDEN says the Chinese Spy Balloon was NOT a big deal.

Source: www.foxnews.com...

I guess that means we can forget about it and move on. Right?

a reply to: carewemust

A Congressman briefed on the balloon this morning, said it stayed over our missile silos around North Dakota/Montana for 48 hours, before using a combo of wind currents and onboard steering mechanisms to move over Military locations in Nebraska and Kansas, before enabling the Jet Stream to take it away from the continental U.S.

That makes a lot of sense.

The prevailing wind patterns are known, at least to a large degree. There was likely some control circuitry to account for variations. The balloon was launched with a pre-determined flight plan to ride those prevailing air currents to the Montana coordinates, then locate any missile bases via electronic surveillance. We know the military tried to jam the signal; that would account for the 48 hour delay. Eventually all needed data would have been relayed to the satellite, the satellite would have returned a code to tell the balloon to proceed to the next coordinates, and the balloon control signal would have maneuvered it toward Nebraska and Kansas.

Since it did not stop there, we can assume any jamming techniques used would have been ineffectual. Once that data was relayed to the satellite, another code would have been sent to the balloon telling it to complete its mission (which would essentially be to allow prevailing air currents to take it off the coast of the US).

All in all, the amount of data transmitted to the satellite could be along the order of a couple of kilobytes; the acknowledgement codes sent to the balloon could be as little as a few bytes. Control circuitry can handle the rest. That means data transfer could have taken under ten seconds total.

One thing people don't seem to understand is that it is not possible to jam a transmitter signal. All signal jamming takes place at the receiver. Jamming a radio signal is nothing more than broadcasting a very loud amount of noise on a given frequency... the transmitter will still transmit regardless. The receiver may not be able to read the signal being jammed. In this case, the receiver for the bulk of the data is the satellite, and the balloon is positioned 60,000 feet closer to the satellite than any ground-based jamming signals. Jamming the receiver on the balloon would have been much easier, and all that would effectively do is delay the acknowledgement code and cause a delay.

China has access to Russian technology. When it comes to control systems, Russia has outpaced the USA continuously since the science became a science. Any control techniques we develop, Russia has likely had for a couple years. Also, remember, latest reports are that this balloon was launched from west of Alaska. That's not China; that is Russia. This may be a Chinese balloon under control of the Chinese government, but it appears to be using Russian technology.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Zaphod58

However you spin it, the other side is "evil"...

Plausible deniability.

This is kindergarten all over again... between nations!

a reply to: interupt42

Maybe they are trying to save us??...

from the final battle?

originally posted by: Ahabstar
And while the eyes are on the skies and hands are wringing over a balloon,

Ohio train derailment causes massive fire, forces village evacuation


Haz Mat consisting of at least Vinyl Chloride is in 20 some tanker cars and at least one is leaking. This happened last night and hardly a peep until this evening. This is in reply to a post earlier in thread wisely asking “what the other hand is doing” while this distracts the news.

This isn't being talked about enough in the media. Local governments and insurance are playing dumb and refusing to accept blame for anything. Telling residents that the situation is fine. Local media has also been heavily criticized for down playing events by stating toxic clouds were just from the weather.

This looks really bad for residents and its a shame that this isn't being discussed enough. Iv'e seen comments from people who said that this is due to greed - from the railroad companys laying off people and making workers work extra hours. Some railraod works saying that they were encouraged to just pass inspections quickly, even if there was concerns.

Shame on media for putting this aside as a non-issue and treating the balloon as a national emergency.