Earlier this month, China tested a new helium-filled airship that will soar to great height to offer the government new and broad surveillance capabilities. Called Yuanmeng, the ship is expected to be able to stay aloft for up to 48 hours. According to People's Daily Online, an official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, the Yuanmeng was tested above Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia, on October 6.
The airship works via a combination of lighter-than-air gases and electricity. Helium lifts the ship to the near-space region (65,000 to 328,000 feet). Once Yuanmeng is at altitude, solar panels mounted on the surface provide electrical power to propellers that guide the airship into position. Solar power is ideal for high-altitude drones and airships because it reduces the need for an internal fuel supply, reducing the overall size of the aircraft and freeing it from the task of carrying its own fuel.
Yuanmeng measures an enormous 18,000 cubic meters (635,664 cubic feet) in volume. The airship is equipped with communications and surveillance gear, including wide-band communications, digital data links, high-definition "observation" (HD cameras), and spatial imaging technologies.
People's Daily is coy on the use of the airship, saying only that it can carry out "multiple tasks." One of those tasks is likely to be part of the "kill chain" of sensors China is building to target foreign navy vessels—particularly American aircraft carriers—in a shooting war. A kill chain is a network of sensors that detect and track enemy targets, feeding real-time data to missiles and aircraft.
Yuanmeng would be the very tip of the kill chain, floating high above the South China Sea, searching for targets miles below. Combined with data gathered from satellites, aircraft, submarines, and drones, Yuanmeng would help the People's Liberation Army establish a persistent picture of the seas.
An airship sounds like a fairly fragile platform, but Yuanmeng's high cruising altitude will keep it out of range of most missiles. One missile that could hit it would be the American-Japanese SM-3 Block IIA ballistic missile interceptor. In 2008, an earlier version of that was used to destroy the wayward USA-193 satellite, then in a declining orbit 130 nautical miles above the surface of the Earth.