That would work. In either case the balloon is using up resources, which means that it could only manoeuvre until those resources are exhausted.
On the other hand the large solar array on the payload could supply power almost indefinitely (in theory).
My apologies. I should have prefaced the word “jamming”. I couldn’t find a quote. That’s my word. I’m not sure how they worded it but the implication was that it was rendered incapable of it’s mission.
Ultimately it was.
In principle (if you have power), you can pump lift gas into high-pressure storage tanks, instead of just venting it. But in practice, it’s usually easier to just design a balloon with enough consumables to last for its intended mission. And even with pumping into storage tanks, lift gas will still effectively be a consumable, because some amount of leakage is inevitable.
Yes.
They found gaps in our continental air defense.
Pentagon Admits It Failed To Spot 3 Chinese Spy Balloons During Trump’s Term
This route wasn’t a gap.
It was a substantial setup.
“The balloon assessment was up to 200 feet tall for the actual balloon,” he told reporters during a press briefing.
“Of the payload itself, I would categorize that as a jet-airliner type of size, maybe a regional jet such as a ERJ [Embraer Regional Jet] or something like that. [It] probably weighed in excess of a couple thousand pounds.”
Quick quote for those that don’t click links:
Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, told reporters a “domain awareness gap” led to the Pentagon’s failure to detect the “threats” during Trump’s tenure, but the military later learned about the balloons via intelligence-gathering operations “from additional means.”
My bold.
I didn’t realize how big the payload was. This was tracked crossing over Japan on it’s way to Alaska.
That’s Mil-Speak for:
We were guarding the front door so they cleverly slipped in the back door. Who could have predicted such a trick? Surely not us.
Agreed, but my guess is now we’ll close that gap. In the era of drone warfare, that’s a good thing.
You must never have sat through talks from DoD people. He’s quite comprehensible compared to many I’ve heard.
Exactly what information about the upper atmosphere isn’t available from NOAA? Plus, if it really came from a civilian agency, maybe they could have informed us that their gigantic and expensive balloon had gone off course?
In any case if the Chinese government say it’s a weather balloon, it definitely isn’t. Those people make Trump look like Abe Lincoln. Though Trump, in denying it ever happened during his administration, is trying to catch up.
I’m interested if the Chinese try to make up a company to take the blame, or if they don’t even care enough to make the effort.
The People’s Wayward Balloon Factory Number 12 would like to express a most sincere apology for their product’s inadvertent visit to your fine country.
However we also regret to inform you that any warrantee returns require the complete intact envelope and all attached accessories.
Wind speeds are less in the lower atmosphere, but the air is much more dense, and more chaotic due to surface interaction. Operating an airship is more difficult near the surface (Hindenburg). They knew close enough where it would go when they launched it.
But of course, Fox News blames Biden.
TIL that my car weighs twice as much as regional airliner.
I don’t know why we haven’t charged Alex Murdoch for being a foreign agent…
A small RJ weighs 25,000 lbs empty and 45,000 lbs fully loaded. A really big one is more like 65,000 lbs empty and 115,000 lbs fully loaded. So anywhere between 10 and 50 times heavier than a typical passenger car.
To be sure, free balloon spy hardware would be both big and very un-dense = light. It’s probably mostly antennas and solar cells. So it could in fact be a shape composed of multiple 50-foot “wings” akin to an RJ for whatever purposes yet weigh only 10K lbs.
Said another way, I think what the General meant to say was smarter than what he really said. Which was stupid. Misleading and stupid. 
But at least it was bureaucratic and ponderous.
Suffice it to say, sometimes spokespersons get in over their head.
The jet reference was a comparison of it’s size. The weight was probably based on the size of the balloon lifting it.
