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U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

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Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#61

Post by walrus01 »

mrdmnd wrote: post #55
walrus01 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (looks to be Ku-band satellite or similar) It's impossible to tell from looking at it in a photo taken from that distance what band a parabolic aimed (pan/tilt motorized) geostationary satellite antenna of that type is. Unless you're close enough to measure the diameter of the feed horn. Small size means it's unlikely to be C-band as not enough gain unless you want to waste a huge section of transponder space at BP…

ex-Loon engineer reporting in. Can confirm, I'm having a good chuckle.

Is this something like what you guys would have built if given a mission statement as "spent a few million dollars to build a really long endurance platform, cost is no object" ?

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#62

Post by Karawebnetwork »

evan_ wrote: post #27

Was this "selfie" literally taken handheld with a cell phone by the person in the shot? Surely they wouldn't bring personal phones into the cockpit- and wouldn't they be wearing gloves anyway?

"The Standard Flying Gloves worn by American military aviators since the 1960s are also touch screen compatible."

https://gibson-barnes.com/product/apparel/flying-gloves/touc... (sorry for using a random store as a source)

Given that we often see USAF pilot selfies online, it's clearly allowed at (special?) times. But as others have said, this was probably asked specifically for PR reasons.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#63

Post by JPKab »

jkaptur wrote: post #41
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting plane to use when considering the USSR shot down a U-2 in 1960. This history even rhymes: the US initially claimed the U-2 was a weather device like China did with this balloon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident If the Chinese say they can fly their balloons, can we fly our planes at the same altitude?

The Chinese shot down a number of U2s as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cat_Squadron You can see one of them at the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution, but it's in pretty rough shape (understandably).

Fascinating.

The intel gathered from these likely helped send Nixon to China by revealing the Sino-Soviet tensions due to the military buildup at the border.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#64

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

jpgvm wrote: post #30

Pretty interesting platform. Looks to have around 16x300W solar panels, so roughly 4.8KW. A lot but no unreasonable given it has 4 electric turbines and it would take a lot of grunt to influence a balloon of that size especially given air density altitude. If it is a civilian craft it's either government or maybe one of the big Chinese universities. Supporting the spy angle is the pretty obvious connectivity (looks t…

Satellites follow planned predictable paths. Balloons can loiter.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#66

Post by travisjungroth »

hotpotamus wrote: post #37
Animats wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the only picture of the balloon fully intact that exists. There are almost certainly much better pictures. This is just the pilot's selfie. The U-2 is built to take pictures. USAF: "The U-2 is capable of gathering a variety of imagery, including multi-spectral electro-optic, infrared, and synthetic aperture radar products which can be stored or sent to ground exploitation centers. In addition, it also suppo…

I doubt a U-2 camera could focus on another plane; I'd assume it's quite specialized for ground observation.

It has a replaceable pod for a variety of equipment. They’ve been flying these for 67 years. I’d bet pretty strongly they were prepared.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#67

Post by Scoundreller »

walrus01 wrote: post #53
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #29

Does anyone who knows anything about solar panels have an estimate of how much electricity that could produce?

ordinary commercially available terrestrial solar panels (which are heavy when built into glass front panel and backing sheet + aluminum frame), made from high efficiency monocrystalline si cells are commonly maxing out like: 60 x 6W 156mm cells = 360W STC rating 72 x 6W 156mm cells = 430W STC rating or around there. If they used triple junction GaAs cells or something exotic like you'd see on a satellite it could be…

How much more efficient does solar get at -60C? Or is it just better for longevity?

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#69

Post by onepointsixC »

jpgvm wrote: post #30

Pretty interesting platform. Looks to have around 16x300W solar panels, so roughly 4.8KW. A lot but no unreasonable given it has 4 electric turbines and it would take a lot of grunt to influence a balloon of that size especially given air density altitude. If it is a civilian craft it's either government or maybe one of the big Chinese universities. Supporting the spy angle is the pretty obvious connectivity (looks t…

>Supporting the spy angle is the pretty obvious connectivity (looks to be Ku-band satellite or similar) but it also doesn't really make that much sense... surely a satellite does what this does but better? China has no shortage of high quality spy satellites.

Two things. It will be significantly better at ELINT, soaking up signals over which it floats. Second, at 60,000 feet it is at least an order of magnitude closer than LEO spy satellites are, if not more. Simple physics dictates the limits of resolution for the lenses for spy satellites. Being significantly closer makes it much easier to provide better images than a multi billion dollar spy satellite. All at a significantly lower cost.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#70

Post by xwdv »

dreamer7 wrote: post #65

Apologies for the naive questions in advance. Is it not possible to go up there in a hot air balloon to inspect it from a closer distance? Also, what about base jumping onto it? Are there any methods of getting it back to the ground intact?

Are you writing a spy novel
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