The Chinese balloons caught in panic when they flew through the US two years ago were set to spy on Americans, as they had long been suspected, but surprisingly, they were made in the US. In technology, according to a new report.
The 200-foot-high balloon was equipped with at least five American companies’ satellite communications modules, sensors and other technologies, two sources with direct knowledge of the US military report told Newsweek. I did.
The ship floating across Canada from Alaska to the Midwest US from Alaska before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, 2023, may have collected detailed data on unforgettable Americans. According to sources, some of the balloons were recovered, citing what was found.
It includes technologies that investigate, take photos and collect other intelligence data, as well as even fireable gliders that may have flew on other reconnaissance missions, sources say. Citations from the report.
“The Chinese companies wouldn’t have given them full US SATCOM coverage,” said one source for a former federal intelligence agent.
The technology coincides with a scientist at the Institute of Aerospace Information Innovation in Beijing, which has links to the Chinese military, the patent awarded to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) scientist. did. Direct.
The patent entitled “High-altitude balloon safety control and positioning recovery device and method” was a short burst messaging module called Iridium 9602, Newsweek reported.
Module maker Iridium, a global satellite communications provider with Command Post in McLean, Virginia, is just a few miles from CIA headquarters, the report says.
Balloon also has a communication system by Iridam, with technology from four other US companies, Texas Instruments, Omega Engineering, Amphenol All Sensor Corporation and Oncemee focusing on other equipment from at least one Swiss company .
Iridium told Newsweek it is impossible to always know how the technology (which costs just $150 online) is purchased and used.
“We certainly don’t tolerate radios or modules. They’re used in ways that are not the case in the end,” said Jordan Hashim, executive director of communications at Iridium.
“There’s no way to know what the use of a particular module is. …For us, it could be a whale wearing a tag to track it, which is a polar bear, an explorer hiking the mountains. It could be.”
Since then, the spy aircraft have weighed around 200 feet and weighed thousands of pounds.
It may have also carried explosives intended to self-destruct, the US North American Aerospace Defense Command previously revealed.
Despite the reports, Chinese officials stuck with the story that the balloons were innocent weather research vessels that were blown off the course.
A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, stabilized the story this week.
“The wandering of a Chinese civilian unmanned airship into US airspace was a massive, massive accident,” a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., told Newsweek.
“The airships used in weather research have unintentionally floated on us due to the West and its limited voluntary capabilities.”
