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The apparent propellers on it are interesting. I was under the impression the claim was an unpowered balloon just steered using vertical motion to get in the ri
by dendrite9 4y ago
The apparent propellers on it are interesting. I was under the impression the claim was an unpowered balloon just steered using vertical motion to get in the right air currents.
The Drive has a link to a similar balloon spotted over Japan several years ago but without the large solar array, presumably to help power the motors? Or just to provide longer term power for a longer flight.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/our-best-look-yet-at-the-chinese-spy-balloons-massive-payload https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/our-best-look-yet-at-t...
- throwbadubadu 4y agoSteering with just vertical motion alone won't work unpowered as well? At that size the pump has quite something to do, and needs to be temperated. Here is a nice article from analysis, prior art, to some guesses about lot more details, just need your favorite translation tool: https://steadyhq.com/en/realitatsabzweig/posts/90669d9f-e2f2-4793-a213-be6570e77d80 https://steadyhq.com/en/realitatsabzweig/posts/90669d9f-e2f2... Power is needed for the pump to go up and down, eventual rudder/rotors, to keep hardware warm enough (!), and also large array because in contrast to Loon no transparent material but very reflective one, which has advantages but comes with more self-shading (counter with larger array). Also btw, propellers were present also on the later Loons already..