Pak Sahafat – The American Politico website pointed out why the military of countries use spy balloons under the pretext of a Chinese balloon flying over America and wrote: Experts say that this spy tool is cheap, can carry a lot of equipment and float in space for a long time.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency’s report, Politico added: The Pentagon (US Department of Defense) says that a Chinese balloon flew at a high altitude over the US this week and carried surveillance equipment and violated US airspace.
Spy balloons have been around since the late 1700s, but why are militaries around the world still flying them in 2023?
Firstly, by flying at high altitude, these balloons can perform surveillance missions at a lower cost than satellites and are able to carry more cargo compared to a drone. Modern high-altitude wind turbines can ride wind currents and travel far above commercial air traffic.
Another reason for using spy balloons is that they can travel long distances without refueling.
Tom Karako, a senior expert in the International Security Program and director of the Missile Defense Project at the American Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in this regard: The balloon that was detected in the American sky could be carrying a camera or devices to receive electronic signals such as traffic.
This media added, in addition to the lower cost of using spy balloons, its other advantage over satellites is that they can float for a longer time than the satellite passes through an orbit. Byron Callan, managing director of the satellite research company Capital Alpha Partners in the United States reported: Hostile countries can track orbital passages, and the United States or another country can plan for satellite surveillance.
Explaining the reason for concern about the use of spy balloons, Politico wrote: Balloons that fly at high altitude can easily be identified as flying objects of a civilian nature. For example, if a drone had flown over the United States, it would have been obvious that the Beijing government had sent it.
Foreign governments can use spy balloons to claim that they are using them for civilian purposes such as monitoring weather patterns.
The use of spy balloons dates back to the late 1700s during the French Revolutionary Wars. They were also used to collect information in the 1860s and during the American Civil War.
NASA began using helium-filled balloons in the 1950s, and the US military tested them for flying at lower altitudes in the mid-2010s.
Unlike high altitude balloons, these small balloons were designed to track boats, drones, cruise missiles and ground equipment.
In 2019, the Pentagon worked on a project aimed at identifying drug traffickers. At the time, the Pentagon launched 25 surveillance balloons from South Dakota as part of a project.
Pentagon officials confirmed to Politico last year that the project had changed to a military project, but declined to disclose details due to confidentiality. These airships could eventually be used to track Russian and Chinese hypersonic weapons.