This is no surprise if true!
I have questions about the last position and timing. The last raw APRS packet shows it here at 11:23:06 UTC.
I guess I’m lost here! The APRS data has the last packet ~5 hours ago Feb 16th. The shoot down over Yukon was Feb 11th? The altitude shows 960.12m
The last several packets were the same. I wouldn’t expect GPS to give the exact same data even if the ballon is stationary! Feels like APRS is beaconing bad data! Or the system they used to inject that data to APRS is still going.
In the case of this balloon the RCS would be roughly equal to the diameter. 32” 81.28cm as long as the wavelength << diameter. L-Band 24cm would be quite long for that to hold true but it would still return a significant amount of energy.
For X-Band like the F-22s APG-77 80cm is going to be really close. No idea how far a the F-22 could detect a 80cm sphere.
I reached out to @NORADCommand PIO via email. This is what I got back! #AmateurRadio #hamradio #yukon #balloon
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