The US military plans to use inflatable aircraft as one of the means to track and counter Russian and Chinese hypersonic weapons, Politico reports, citing US Department of Defense budget documents.
According to the publication, the Pentagon has spent about $3.8 million over the past two years on aircraft projects.
The bright spot for the US is that inflatable air vehicles could help track and deter hypersonic weapons being developed by Russia and China.
According to the draft budget documents, the Pentagon expects to spend another $27.1 million to continue work on several projects in fiscal year 2023.
Tom Karako, director of the missile defense project at the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, considers long-term, multifunctional and maneuverable balloons and other similar devices equipped with solar panels, which can be at an altitude of 18 to 27 km. The cost of launching balloons is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to the millions or tens of millions needed to launch and operate planes or satellites, the newspaper notes.
Politico notes that the Pentagon has been testing high-altitude balloons and unmanned aerial vehicles over the past few years to collect data, provide communications to ground forces and troubleshoot satellites. So, in 2019, the Pentagon launched 25 balloons to track drug trafficking. Balloons “can complement the work done by conventional aircraft and satellites” and can be built and launched at a lower cost and time, the paper concludes.
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