According to a report recently published by the Washington Post, the US Army will launch two blimp-like surveillance craft as part of a 3 year test aimed at bolstering the airborne defense system of the country’s eastern seaboard.
Called aerostats, the ground tethered craft have been used throughout Afghanistan and Iraq as continuous monitors of local activity. Armed with sophisticated radar and imaging technology the aerostats, which hang around 3050 meters (10,000ft) in the air, are capable of detecting airborne objects some 340 miles afield. In fact, as they hover over Army owned land some 45 minutes northeast of Washington DC, the pair of aerostat blimps will cast their gaze across a swath of land spanning the 1130 kilometers (702 mile) distance from Boston to Raleigh, North Carolina.
While the US Army has said the new domestic based aerostats will only carry radar technology many Americans concerned with the overreach of government surveillance are weary of the blimps’ presence in nearby skies.
Over the course of the next three years the military will have its opportunity to test whether aerostats are useful for detecting belligerent cruise missile incursions and other airborne threats. During the same time American’s will have the chance to decide just how comfortable they are will possibility of persistence surveillance.
Image Courtesy of Wikipedia