Satellite pictures show 100ft-long Chinese blimp at secret desert base

Satellite pictures show 100ft-long Chinese ‘submarine of the skies’ military blimp at secret desert military base

  • Images were taken of secret military base in Chinese northwestern desert
  • READ: US military recovers key sensors from shot down Chinese spy balloon 

Satellite pictures show a 100ft-long blimp developed by the Chinese military at a secret desert military base.

The images of a base in northwestern China were taken three months before a Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the US coast and could indicate a significant advancement in China’s airship programme, aerospace experts said.

The 100ft-long blimp sitting in the middle of a nearly 0.6mile-long runway could be a ‘more versatile and maneuverable craft than previously seen or known’, CNN reports. 

The images, taken by US satellite imaging company BlackSky, were presented to several aerospace experts, who confirmed they show a blimp, a runway, a pivot point to launch airships and a 900ft-long hanger hangar.

Jamey Jacobs, executive director of the Oklahoma Aerospace Institute, said that a blimp like this may be used as a ‘submarine of the skies’, as its propulsion and navigation capabilities could see it hovering over an area for quite some time.

The images of a base in northwestern China were taken three months before a Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the US coast and could indicate a significant advancement in China’s airship programme, aerospace experts said

The 100ft-long blimp sitting in the middle of a nearly 0.6mile-long runway could be a ‘more versatile and maneuverable craft than previously seen or known’, CNN reports

He told CNN: ‘It really is the next leap for them in terms of furthering the engineering and support of research funding in that direction.’

A senior Defense Department official said since the blimp was visible via satellite imagery, the Pentagon would be aware and tracking the object, but declined to comment what threat the blimp may pose as part of China’s arsenal. 

The satellite images confirm that China is using all types of airships: blimps, aerostats and free-floating balloons, like the one shot down over the coast of South Carolina on February 4. 

Eli Hayes, who has studied the Chinese airship programme for years, said the blimp’s appaearance on a secret military base marks a transition in Chinese blimp technology and research from being civilian to use in the military.

William Kim, a surveillance balloon specialist at The Marathon Initiative, a non-profit military and diplomativ research organisation, said if he had to guess, he would say the blimp was part of ‘some sort of testing’.  

Other satellite imagery and analysis suggest that there may be bigger goals for the secret airship site and the Chinese airship programme.

Recently issues patents indicate that a unit has been created to oversee the technology as well as that the new unit holds several patents relating to airship technology and storage.

When the massive hanger was built in 2013, there was little activity around it for years until these recent images show the new blimp near the hangar.

The Chinese ‘spy balloon’ that flew across the US in February gathered intelligence from several American military sites before it was shot down, according to two senior US officials and a former senior administration official.

The sources said China could have gathered more intelligence if not for the Biden administration’s efforts to block it.

The balloon entered US airspace on 28 January and was shot down on 4 February after passing over US nuclear missile sites, including the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.

The intel collected was mostly from electronic signals, rather than images, experts said. China previously claimed that the balloon was a civilian weather balloon that strayed off course. The foreign ministry condemned its shooting down as an ‘overreaction’.

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