Information Services USA they think that her program China The use of “spy balloons” is part of a global surveillance operation aimed at collecting information about the military capabilities of countries around the world, according to three US officials.

The balloons are part of China’s efforts to gather more and more information about US military bases in which it is of greater interest, as well as similar sites elsewhere in the event of conflict or escalation, some officials said.

These balloons have some advantages over satellites that orbit the Earth in a certain pattern, officials say. They fly closer to Earth and are swept away by wind currents that are not as predictable for the military and intelligence agencies as given satellite orbits, and can also evade radar.

In addition, they have the ability to hover over areas while the satellites are in constant motion. Simple cameras on balloons can produce sharper images than those provided by satellites, and they are equipped with tracking equipment that can detect signals that do not reach the height of the satellites.

U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter, said intelligence agencies under the Biden administration have a much better understanding of the scope of China’s ballooning operation. past intrusions that were classified as “unknown incidents”. In addition, they track new orders from Chinese balloons.

However, US officials said that in most cases, such balloons were observed only briefly. The spy balloon’s flight over the US last week gave the US military and intelligence agencies enough time to study the capabilities of the surveillance equipment attached to it. Officials said they now know much more about what China has been able to collect with the balloons.

^{Source: New York Times.}