Chinese spy balloon flying over U.S. Pentagon says
 

A Chinese surveillance balloon has been spotted over the continentalUnited States and scrutinized by the U.S. military for several days, prompting the Pentagon to consider shooting it down, senior U.S. officials said Thursday, a strikingdevelopment in a time of rising tensionbetween the twoworld powers. I would have thought a balloon couldn't accomplish anything that a modern spy satellite could? I'm too new to post a link, maybe one of you seasoned members could...

Chinese Spy Balloon loitering over continental US
 

Currently over Montana. I recall a similar report last year but believe it was above FL450

Curious whether any NOTAMs have been published regarding this "incursion". Apparently there was a ground stop at KBIL

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fn_4yQ4X...jpg&name=largehttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fn_4yQ2W...pg&name=medium

Tankers seem busy - wonder how many fighters are up there giving it the eyeball

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fn_6zWtX...jpg&name=large

More details in this updated NPR article
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/02/11539...ntana-pentagon

This shot looks very different to the dirigible cigar-shaped one posted in today's other thread. If this 'round' one is correct, then it looks very similar to one that drifted 'mysteriously' over Japan a couple of years back. There was at the time some debate as to whether the rack hanging from it could provide some form of guided propulsion or not, as I recall.

Quick! Inflate a whole bunch of these!:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e4049da2bf.jpg

"You're gonna need a bigger gun!"

Deploy the dummy missiles!

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f57dfcdbfe.jpg
Dummy SA-2 at the Air Force Museum in Hanoi.

Reported elsewhere as two F-22 with tanker support.

One would assume our friends at Fort Meade are using national technical or some other means to listen in on what's going back to Beijing, which would also be a good reason for not shooting it.
As an old spook once said "...they were listening to you, and we were listening to them listening to you..."!

Imagine the same thing happening with a US spy-balloon flying over China. They would rev into red RPM.

according to this statement no need for a NOTAM , we have enough of thsoe CYA ones already ...

Hm, if this thing mysteriously deflates and comes down anywhere in the desert, who would complain?

How high is the balloon?
 

How high is this balloon? One talking head on the morning news said 300 miles! That doesn't make sense.

Then she went on to say something like, "Perhaps we can send up a fighter and cast a net over the balloon and drag it back down."

If they try that, I certainly hope they make a high quality video so they can use the footage in the next Spiderman or Tom Cruise movie.

Does the F-35 internal weapons bay have a "cast net" option that they've been keeping secret from us?

Well...Even above FL450 any civil Gulf or Glex could hit it...At least till FL 510 iirc...Does anyone knows for sure wich FL he is opr?

We need a few darts players.

Why all this fuss over “spy balloons”? Regular commercially available satellite imagery that everyone can view on Google Maps provides all the intelligence anyone needs:

To Find America's Nuclear Missiles, Try Google Maps

I’m sure the “spy” satellites used by various countries will show even greater detail, so no need for anyone to kick up a stink about being “spied on” from a balloon. Especially the US, when they are doing the same thing. There’s probably half a dozen NSA satellites over China photographing every square inch as we speak:

Everything We Know About America's Secret KH-11 Recon Satellites

Complete speculation on my part, but maybe it's not images the Chinese seek, but rather relayed transmissions or signals?

It would be illuminating, if not downright amusing for someone to explain just how Uncle Sam is supoosed to 'down' a balloon. Surveillance balloons tend to fly in the stratosphere way above the service cieling of most, if not all fighters which in any case are not equipped with any weapon that could credibly deflate a balloon. Perhaps a very close (feet away) supersonic pass might do the trick but you'd probably need an X15 or SR71 to get that high - if you were lucky and the balloon was low enough..

Even if there’s Chinese spies on the ground transmitting messages back to Beijing I don’t think they need to relay their signals via a massive balloon hovering over the middle of Montana.

The US government released a statement pretty much admitting the reconnaissance capabilities gained by the balloon wouldn’t be as useful as what they already have via satellite.

(Retd USAF Col.) Ganyard predicted the balloon was an experiment gone awry.

Such balloons are not controlled after their release and while they are normally equipped with mechanisms to deflate over an open area, the mechanisms can fail, Ganyard said. So it's possible the balloon would have drifted over from China after multiple days, rather than being nefariously deployed.

China intentionally deploying a reconnaissance balloon over the U.S. would be highly provocative, with little value, Ganyard said, noting that Chinese satellites are able to collect information in a similar manner.

If so what would be the point of sending a huge stratospheric balloon that can be spotted miles away... ?

Why not just take a spare drone and rip it open while it is over the US and nobody has claimed it to be his? Say it just crashed.

I think this balloon intrusion is intended to become a political trade object versus US overflights of "their" (claimed) eastern pacific reefs and through "their" (claimed to be chinese) international airspace.

JOKE Well, perhaps one of these has been drifting around since WW2? JOKE OVER
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb

BALLOON HYSTERIA!

The intelligence collecting value of a balloon at 60000 ft has to be close to zero compared to satellites. Balloon path is influenced by jet stream winds and can be modified only slightly by changing altitude. NOAA flies numerous high altitude balloon missions and recently Project Loon flew world wide balloons attempting to bring internet/wifi to remote locations.

The U-2 might go high enough. Agree it would be difficult to down, it was difficult to shoot down WW1 German dirigibles and they were hydrogen filled. I wonder if this is hydrogen - way cheaper and easier to get than helium and provides greater lift.

Looking at the photo, the payload and the solar panels alttached to it, it looks more like a weather observation balloon than a spy/camera one , which , anyway as many have stated already here, makes no real sense as satellites would do a better job, and a Sat can be moved to specific areas , unlike ballons which depends on high altitude winds. I have seen athmospheric weather ballons self destruct fail and ended up having huge diameters in hundreds of feet , passing thoug 30-40.000 ft , hence the warning we had ,and still going up . At one point , if the enevoppe is strong enough they would stop climbing and drift. No idea at which excact altitude there is no more wind. but I would say probably in the mesosphere i.e. above 150.000 ft , and once the baloon reached this it just becomes stationary , . Could be just that.. But if it was I think surely the Chinese would have said it already., so a bit of mystery. remains.

As to shooting it down , I know you Americans guys love to shoot at things , but how ? A helium gas ballon can go up to 170.000 ft , as far as I know the US only has a F-22 today that could go up to 70.000 ft max. , still a long way to go if the baloon is above 100.000 ft. Funny enough ,( just looked it upt) the last altitude world records , up to 120.000 ft are held by good old MIG 25s. .

The Chinese have claimed ownership as a “civilian” R&D asset.

All the way back in 1985, the U.S. demonstrated the capability to destroy a target hundreds of miles above Earth using a missile launched from an F-15. More recently, Operation Burnt Frost knocked down another satellite, using a ship-based missile defense system. And as I noted in another post, the Patriot system is available for altitudes up to around 80K ft. Ironically, all the U.S. air-defense and missile-defense systems are optimized for the technically-challenging fast-moving target. A balloon is certainly not that.

They did destroy a satellite in orbit with an F-15 once, so not out of the question.

Apparently China's latest 'explanation' is that it is a Met balloon, which was blown off course.
Do they not understand irony?

Shooting down the satellite was the dumbest thing to do. Sure, it's nice to know you can, but the problem is once the big boys do it then everyone else needs to prove they can as well. But that ignores one huge glaring error.

It's not possible to shoot down a satellite.

The US didn't and no one else has. What the US proved was that they could turn a functioning and still useful satellite into about 50,000 tiny non-functioning satellites, the majority of which are likely still in orbit as a giant debris field. The Russians added their debris field and the Chinese did also, somewhat recently. My hope is that the better educated Indian military will finally go, "Yes, you cannot shoot a satellite down." and be satisfied with knowing that they can hit things with missiles and not need to prove they can hit a satellite also.

Sure, put a missile into an airplane and the airplane comes down; not so for satellites.

Thanks BFSGrad for the explanation . I do not know how a Patriot missile finds its taget, but a balloon is stationary . made almost all of thin synthetic fabric and gas (Helium or Hydrogen) , the payload is rather small and it is not poducing any heat, so IR will be useless. But maybe it has contrast camera or laser detection.?
Just listened of the Pentagon briefing , did not say much other that it is apparently at 60.000ft, so much lower than I tought, and is able to manoeuvre , which kind of surprises me , up and down yes of course, but laterally ? .It was identified as a surveillance balloon . At one polint he said it was the size of 3 buses, but not saying if this is the payload or the balloon itself.

Pentagon Briefing On Chinese Spy Balloon: "Does Not Pose A Risk To People On The Ground" | Video | RealClearPolitics

Doesn't sound much like a weather balloon.
I read elsewhere that the US doesn't want to shoot it down because they are gaining massive intelligence from their observations.
That being said, photos from 60k ft. could be much more revealing than a spy satellite 100+ miles up... There are several ICBM missile sites in and around Montana...

How does it manoeuvre vertically ?

Is it a hot-air balloon ? :O

Sites that can be seen from a satellite every day of the year

Isn’t likely to be a test of reactions and / or a middle finger rather than a serious spying operation?

The old basic way : you release gas to go down , you release ballast ( used to be sand) to go up. Same technique as in the 19th century.. You can only do this a limited number of times though...

That’s no balloon. It’s a space station…

... that can be quite easily photographed from the road!


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0562738f98.jpg
​​​​​​​

...or from a drone. But cross that fence line, and you will be served a hot supper.

Er, doesn't that normally rely on there being someone on board to do the necessary ?

But if you bothered to read the rest of my post "photos from 60k ft. could be much more revealing than a spy satellite 100+ miles up". Plus satellites can't 'linger'.
Now, why the Chinese would want or need such high-resolution photos, I have no idea. But given Montana is pretty much the definition of "nowhere", why would they maneuver to keep the balloon in that area for an extended period?