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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

#121

Post by libertyhouse »

walrus01 wrote: post #43
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…

> (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…

Most likely TIANLIAN satcom

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

#122

Post by scheme271 »

Infinity315 wrote: post #87
harles wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> surely a satellite does what this does but better? China has no shortage of high quality spy satellites. Maybe not. Satellites are highly predictable and things can be tucked neatly away when they’re known to be overhead.

> Satellites are highly predictable and things can be tucked neatly away when they’re known to be overhead. And the same can't be said for a balloon which flies wherever the wind takes it? Does China think NORAD is a joke or that we're incapable of modelling weather patterns?

Apparently the filters on NORADs radar detection and processing systems where discarding objects like the balloon if they were going slow enough.

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

#123

Post by libertyhouse »

titzer wrote: post #56

Maybe they weren't just surveilling, but actually attacking cell networks and/or mobile phones through a vulnerability that requires line-of-sight. Just speculation though. Could also just be a distraction from something else they were up to at the same time.

An offensive RF/cyber operation would be very interesting indeed.

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

#124

Post by kube-system »

mardifoufs wrote: post #110
lightedman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"surely a satellite does what this does but better?" Nope, which is why Google and Apple pay heavily for on-the-ground recording and aerial photography for their maps.

They also don't have access to spy satellite tech though.

Any camera that takes a good picture from 500 miles away takes a better picture from 12 miles away.

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

#126

Post by patapong »

libertyhouse wrote: post #118
travisjungroth wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This looks like it was the two seat trainer version of the U-2 which doesn't carry mission equipment like the SYERS sensor or a data-link.

Would they really send a U-2 plane to pass by the balloon just to take a selfie?

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

#127

Post by travisjungroth »

libertyhouse wrote: post #118
travisjungroth wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This looks like it was the two seat trainer version of the U-2 which doesn't carry mission equipment like the SYERS sensor or a data-link.

I didn't know that. Shit, maybe they did just grab a Canon and go up there.

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

#128

Post by BenjiWiebe »

prpl wrote: post #106
onepointsixC wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 close…

That’s true but it assumes it can get within ~40 miles as the crow flies of an interesting target, even then you are going through a LOT more dense atmosphere for your photos.

The satellites still have to take photos through the atmosphere. All of the atmosphere, in fact.

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

#130

Post by zh3 »

iisan7 wrote: post #77

The full twitter thread is worth a read ( https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1628776107301273601 ). Brings to mind the story in December 2022 about confirming the B-21 hangar location from the night sky in a press photo ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33912401 ). Not enough of the sky for that here though. Wonder if folks in this space have a more automated process to recognize the landscape rather than "Hel…

Publish it widely enough and someone will recognise the terrain (especially with things like reservoirs visible).

To automate it, trace the outline of bodies of water and compare to public data, e.g. SRTM [0]? Lots more detail (and a good jumping-off point) on the wikipedia 'Imagery Intelligence' page [1].

[0] https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/dataprod.htm

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagery_intelligence

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