Seoul, South Korea CNN —News that the Pentagon is monitoring a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon in the skies over the continental United States raises a series of questions – not least among them, what exactly it might be doing. This is not the first time a Chinese balloon has been spotted over the US, but this seems to be acting differently to previous ones, a US defense official said. “Balloon payloads can now weigh less and so the balloons can be smaller, cheaper and easier to launch” than satellites, Layton said. According to Layton, the suspected Chinese balloon is likely collecting information on US communication systems and radars. This could be just an accident, with the balloon blown off course or Chinese operators losing control of it somehow.
Continue reading...
