of the future?

many advantages over surveillance satellites. According to Brynn Tannehill, RAND Corporation, balloons can capture images with the “same resolution as more expensive satellites” and can monitor the same area for “much longer periods”.

Military analysts have also argued the high altitudes spy balloons can reach, up to 20km, allows them to record over a larger area and in more detail than orbiting satellites.

Spy balloons can house cameras, radars, radio devices and sensors, as well as solar panels to power these devices.

They do not need to be manned and can remain active for weeks for longer assessment of ground activity. Aerostar has developed high-altitude balloons for NASA and the US Navy since the 1950s and offers some of the most advanced surveillance balloons available today. They use artificial intelligence and weather prediction models to help the balloons use stratospheric winds to navigate, steer or continuously hover over an area of interest. Russ Van Der Werff, President of Stratospheric Solutions at Aerostar, also claims that their newest balloons can operate for 150 days at a time.

Surveillance balloons appear to offer financial and technological advantages, providing an inexpensive alternative to satellites that yields more detailed results. However, the threat posed by the easy concealment of spy balloons cannot be ignored. Spy balloons are hard to spot with traditional antisurveillance radar equipment. This evasive property can only be expected to progress and could cause major international security incidents if it was utilised to gather intelligence for malicious purposes as seen in the Cold War; critical information could be gathered before a government realised a surveillance balloon had entered its airspace. New detection devices could also be incorporated to the balloons as they enter the market.

China maintains that the incident on the 4th February was an accident caused by high winds, and that the balloon’s purpose was purely for meteorological research. However, it is evident that such incidents, unintentional or premeditated, have the potential to deepen tensions between the world’s largest economic powers. Indeed, the recent spy balloon incident has already had a diplomatic impact, with the US Secretary of State’s upcoming two-day trip to China cancelled amid already strained relations between the two superpowers. It is clear the effects of such spyware seeps beyond gathering intelligence into a political weapon.

CHINA MAINTAINS THAT THE INCIDENT ON THE 4TH OF FEBRUARY WAS AN ACCIDENT CAUSED BY HIGH WINDS

Not all military projects come to fruition, but there is an evident international interest in spy balloons. With their advancing surveillance capabilities and potential to become political ammunition, it seems spy balloons are having a renaissance that simply cannot be ignored.

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