US finishes recovery of Chinese spy balloon, to study how it works

The military said the last of the debris from the downed balloon is heading to an FBI laboratory in Virginia for analysis

The US believes it has collected all of the aerial object’s priority sensors and electronics as well as large sections of its structure

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The US military said the debris from the downed Chinese balloon will be sent to an FBI laboratory in Virginia for analysis. Photo: US Navy via Reuters

Published: 10:51am, 18 Feb 2023Updated: 12:41pm, 18 Feb 2023

The United States said on Friday it had successfully concluded recovery efforts off South Carolina to collect sensors and other debris from a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon shot down by a US fighter jet on February 4, and investigators are now analysing its “guts.”

The search for two of three other objects shot down in the aftermath has also ended, the US military’s Northern Command said in a statement late on Friday.

The last of the debris from the Chinese balloon, which was downed by a Sidewinder missile, is heading to an FBI laboratory in Virginia for analysis, it said.

Reuters was first to report the conclusion of the recovery efforts, which were halted on Thursday.

“It’s a significant amount [of recovered material], including the payload structure as well as some of the electronics and the optics, and all that’s now at the FBI laboratory in Quantico,” said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

Kirby said Washington had already learned a lot about the balloon by observing it as it flew over the US.