US ‘HOT AIR’ FORCE
Military tests high- tech surveillance balloons
The US military is testing up to 25 unmanned, high-altitude surveillance balloons flying across six Midwest states to detect drug trafficking and homeland-security threats, according to a report.
The balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and will drift across Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and Illinois, according to The Guardian, which cited documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission.
Flying at altitudes of up to 65,000 feet, the balloons are intended to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland-security threats,” according to a filing made on behalf of aerospace and defense company Sierra Nevada Corp.
The stratospheric tests have been commissioned by the US Southern Command, a joint effort by the US Army, Navy and Air Force that is responsible for disaster response, intelligence operations and security cooperation in the Caribbean and Central and South America.
The tests received an FCC license to operate balloons from mid-July until September, records show.
The balloons carry high-tech radars that can track multiple vehicles day or night, through any kind of weather and for extended periods.
“Sometimes it’s referred to as ‘combat TiVo’ because when an event happens somewhere in the surveilled area, you can potentially rewind the tape to see exactly what occurred and rewind even further to see who was involved and where they came from,” said Arthur Holland Michel, co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in New York.
The balloons carry small, satellite-like vehicles that house sophisticated sensors and communication gear. One of the sensors is a synthetic aperture radar that can detect every moving vehicle in a 25mile area under the balloon.
The balloons also carry advanced networking technologies that allow them to communicate with one another, share data and transfer it to ground-based receivers.
The balloons also might carry a video capture system called Gorgon Stare, which includes nine cameras capable of recording panoramic images across an entire city simultaneously, according to the FCC documents cited by The Guardian.
While Gorgon Stare is usually used on drones, Michel said the Army has deployed tethered surveillance blimps in Afghanistan and Customs and Border Protection has experimented with low-altitude balloons along the US-Mexico border.