As jets closed in on China balloon, hobbyists were listening

blantonl

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The extraordinary scene of U.S. fighter jets getting ready to strike a Chinese balloonhad many people along the Carolina coast straining their necks and pointing their smartphones to the sky to capture the moment of impact.

But a group of aviation enthusiasts was, instead, intently scanning radio frequencies for the exchanges between the pilots who would follow as Huntress, NORAD’s eastern air defense sector controller, tracked the exact distance as two Air Force F-22 fighter jets closed in on the target.

full story: As jets closed in on China balloon, hobbyists were listening
 

vagrant

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The one pilot describing the aftermath "chaff" sounds so much like a local California Air Guard pilot here in California. I know the masks and air mix changes things, but still, it is easy to hear different voices. Anyways, I hope the audio sparks more to join in on the hobby and then they later deep dive into some ADS-B MLAT sharing.
 

Ubbe

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They shoot a heat or metal seeking missile at it so that the electronics blew up. Didn't they want to examine the electronics intact and not in small pieces picked up from the ocean floor? Seems a bit stupid to not just shoot a hole into the balloon with a cannon to make it slowly decent onto a mil ships deck. Did they suspect it had a self exploding device to protect it from being captured and analyzed?

/Ubbe
 

dlwtrunked

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They shoot a heat or metal seeking missile at it so that the electronics blew up. Didn't they want to examine the electronics intact and not in small pieces picked up from the ocean floor? Seems a bit stupid to not just shoot a hole into the balloon with a cannon to make it slowly decent onto a mil ships deck. Did they suspect it had a self exploding device to protect it from being captured and analyzed?

/Ubbe

You do realize that it was almost certainly hydrogen filled and that is explosive? Shoot any missile at it and there is likely to be an explosion. Even if not, it was not going to slowly come down where you want. Metal seeing missile? No such thing exists. What they did was specifically designed to recover as much as possible.
 

sprman1955

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ON 2-3-23 heard them tracking it on 136.275 at 9pm cst here in TN. Was asking other op if he was tracking it on other freq.No call signs used and they went back to (other) freq. Have no idea if it was AWACS or Sentry or ????
 

kb5udf

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I’d be curious where in the spectrum and what the ballon itself was transmitting. Spying is one thing, exfiltrating the data another. Who or what was receiving this presumably transmitted data and how?
 

chrismol1

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I’d be curious where in the spectrum and what the ballon itself was transmitting. Spying is one thing, exfiltrating the data another. Who or what was receiving this presumably transmitted data and how?
Likely some GHz satellite uplink to their current satellites. U-2 spy planes flew by it and collected data on that. US likely now knows as likely also receiving, SDR satellites exists that can mop up swaths of spectrum.

Info is trickling out now....

"The official emphasized that the equipment on the balloon was “was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons.”

According to a senior State Department official, the surveillance balloon carried multiple antennas capable of “pinpointing the location of communications.” Besides, it was equipped with large solar panels to provide power to intelligence collection sensors.

The Chinese spy balloon that floated across the United States last week before being shot down off the South Carolina coast was equipped with antennas capable of collecting communications signals — as well as other intelligence-gathering equipment, the State Department said Thursday


As the massive white balloon traversed the continental U.S. last week, drifting over several sensitive military sites along the way, it carried equipment that was designed to intercept sensitive communications, said a State Department official, who provided a statement on the condition anonymity to discuss sensitive information.


“It had multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geolocating communications,” the official said. “It was equipped with solar panels large enough to produce the requisite power to operate multiple active intelligence collection sensors.”
 

KAZ7ED

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They shoot a heat or metal seeking missile at it so that the electronics blew up. Didn't they want to examine the electronics intact and not in small pieces picked up from the ocean floor? Seems a bit stupid to not just shoot a hole into the balloon with a cannon to make it slowly decent onto a mil ships deck. Did they suspect it had a self exploding device to protect it from being captured and analyzed?

/Ubbe
You got that right! I couldn't believe it either. Why not shoot a 50cal through the ballon and let it descend slowly for easy and total recovery.
 

StoliRaz

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They shoot a heat or metal seeking missile at it so that the electronics blew up. Didn't they want to examine the electronics intact and not in small pieces picked up from the ocean floor? Seems a bit stupid to not just shoot a hole into the balloon with a cannon to make it slowly decent onto a mil ships deck. Did they suspect it had a self exploding device to protect it from being captured and analyzed?

/Ubbe
Even if you shot the ballon that way, how in the hell are you going to have a slow, *controlled* decent onto a ship? It would be blowing around everywhere in the wind as well. It was the size of 3 school buses from what I've read. Ships don't move fast, and to get one into position to "catch" that, without risking the lives of those on board? I don't think they could even guarantee that it wasn't rigged with an explosive or bio weapon as you said. Probably easier and safer to collect the pieces than try all that.
 

PD47JD

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They shoot a heat or metal seeking missile at it so that the electronics blew up. Didn't they want to examine the electronics intact and not in small pieces picked up from the ocean floor? Seems a bit stupid to not just shoot a hole into the balloon with a cannon to make it slowly decent onto a mil ships deck. Did they suspect it had a self exploding device to protect it from being captured and analyzed?

/Ubbe
OY! I suppose you are drawing upon your personal experience as a fighter pilot?
 

blantonl

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It's been extensively dissected "the decision to use a missile vs canons." - the balloon was a 60K feet and the missile was launched at 50K feet. That 10K feet of difference for a cannon shot is a big deal.

Plus, it's already been tried and done and lessons were learned. Canada tried to shoot down a weather balloon many years ago and they put over 1000 rounds into it and it still didn't come down.

The USAF knows what they were doing.

Also, with regards to exfiltrating the data, there are multiple ways this could be easily accomplished. They could have had an Iridium modem on board, or any number of other commercially available satellite data providers.
 

mwjones

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Also, with regards to exfiltrating the data, there are multiple ways this could be easily accomplished. They could have had an Iridium modem on board, or any number of other commercially available satellite data providers.
Most theories are that they were uplinking the data to their own spy satellites.

I did hear yesterday that the Navy has located the payload mostly intact in 45 feet of water, so the acronym soup of US Government Agencies (but I doubt we the general public) will know a lot more about what the balloon was collecting and how it was getting that data back to China soon.
 

harryshute

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So today USAF shot down an object just above Yukon in Canada. Both Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Joe Biden agreed on the shootdown. NORAD detected the object. FBI and RCMP will investigate the pieces once recovered.
The other odd one yesterday shot down in Alaska airspace was also interesting. Different pilot observations. That one also close to both the Alaska and Yukon border.
 
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