“Rob Reis offers an answer. He is CEO and founder Higher Ground, makers of SatPaq, a compact device that enables your smartphone to send and receive messages over a very powerful geostationary (GEO) satellite, 23,000 miles above Earth.
“With all the intrigue of the 200-foot Chinese balloon, Americans should be asking themselves two key questions:
a) Why so big?
b) What was it supposed to provide the Chinese in intelligence that they couldn’t get by looking on a website like Google Earth?
“We suggest some answers.
“A helium balloon 200 feet in diameter could lift 250,000 lbs. That would be equivalent to carrying 60 cars in the sky. We know from photos that the structure beneath the Chinese balloon was long and lanky but not like 60 cars. So why 200 feet? Why not just use Google Earth photos which are already quite good in image resolution?
“Instead of an imaging system, it was likely an antenna for the collection and analysis of radio communications and radar signals. Satellites are not very large so they do not allow for long structures and they are much further away so the received signals are degraded when they travel that far. What you need to accurately receive, characterize, and geographically locate the emitter is a large antenna array. The longer the array, the stronger the signal and the more accurate the exploitation of information and the location of the signals. Such arrays are unwieldy, expensive, and often impossible to place on a satellite, especially a low-earth orbit satellite.
“In addition, due to the slow, measured motion of the balloon, you can also get what is called ‘synthetic aperture’ gains. So, with such a device as we see in the photograph, one can learn exactly what radio communications and radar signals are present below, record them and find out exactly where they are located.
“At my company, Higher Ground, we have a good understanding of this same technology because we work the other side of the problem. How do you communicate using fielded, pocket-sized satellite communicators to make it difficult to be detected and/or exploited by overhead resources, including satellites or high-altitude balloons? That is the problem that we have solved.”
