The United States provided new details about the 200-foot Chinese spy balloon that floated across the United States for a week before it was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Carolinas.
The U.S. State Department said that U-2 spy planes captured high-resolution images that show the balloon "was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons" and was equipped with "multiple active intelligence collection sensors." It also had an antenna array "capable of collecting and geo-locating communications."
The State Department also said that investigators have determined the company that manufactured the balloon and said it has commercial ties to China's People's Liberation Army.
"The United States will also explore taking action against PRC entities linked to the PLA that supported the balloon's incursion into U.S. airspace," a senior State Department official said. "We are confident that the balloon manufacturer has a direct relationship with China's military and is an approved vendor of the PLA, according to information published in an official procurement portal for the PLA."
Investigators are still working to determine what specific sites the balloon was trying to surveil and what communications the balloon was attempting to intercept.
"We're analyzing them to learn more about the surveillance program. We will pair that with what we learn from the balloon — what we learn from the balloon itself — with what we've gleaned based on our careful observation of the system when it was in our airspace, as the president directed his team to do," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said.