The balloon the Pentagon has been tracking above the country is large enough for officials to warn against it being shot down, but what intelligence is it trying to gather, and what message might it be sending?
No military targets were damaged, but several civilians were killed when one of the balloons crashed in an Oregon forest.
The project flew photographic balloons over Soviet bloc territory in the 1950s, according to government documents. The balloon identified by US defence officials is said to be travelling at an altitude "well above commercial air traffic", which is typical of spy balloons. The highest-performing fighter aircraft typically do not operate above 65,000 feet , although spy planes such as the U-2 have a service ceiling of 80,000 feet or more.Unlike satellites, which require space launchers that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, balloons can be launched cheaply.
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