And balloons have the option to loiter longer than say a satellite or other means.
I assumed they were doing some sort of RF monitoring more than the photo type monitoring.
A lot of the comments focus on "Why would they use balloons when they have satellites?" But the reality is they are cheaper, can be oriented inexpensively and can loiter. Not to mention the lower radar signal and other detection issues (made clear by the revelation that this has been going on for a while).
Now that launching/steering balloons is down to the hobbyist level...it seems a larger corp or state actor could easily use them in a way that seemed impossible 30 years ago.
A lot of the comments focus on "Why would they use balloons when they have satellites?" But the reality is they are cheaper, can be oriented inexpensively and can loiter. Not to mention the lower radar signal and other detection issues (made clear by the revelation that this has been going on for a while).
Now that launching/steering balloons is down to the hobbyist level...it seems a larger corp or state actor could easily use them in a way that seemed impossible 30 years ago.