Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced on Wednesday the installation in Nogales, Arizona (USA), a mile from the border with Mexico, balloon which will allow for constant monitoring of the territory.
Balloon The 22 meter long Persistent Ground Monitoring System is filled with helium and cabled to a platform weighing almost seven tons.
The vehicle will be operated by border guard agents 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The system includes day and night cameras that provide images from a maximum height of about 900 meters above the ground.
“Flying at such an altitude allows border service agents to exercise visual control over the actions of border guards in USA for longer periods,” the CBP said in a statement.
The agency added that it has “successfully used similar process equipment in the Rio Grande Valley sector of Texas since 2013.”
Deployment of 17 more balloons
CBP indicated that the agreement with the Department of Defense allows the border service to increase the number balloons located along the southwestern border, and that 17 of these systems are planned to be deployed in various sectors during the remainder of FY 2022.
“This will be the first balloon in the area of responsibility of the Tucson sector. Additional site defined for balloon near Sasabe, Arizona, which is tentatively scheduled to roll out later this fiscal year,” he added.
In February 2021, Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, said that the CBP would end its surveillance program with balloons started about seven years earlier, and indicated that one of the reasons for this was the cost of the operation.
Cuellar’s announcement was for a program called Tactical Aerostats and Mobile Towers, or TAS, whose devices, equipped with radar, high-definition cameras and infrared vision, could be deployed at an altitude of 150 to 1500 meters.
(As reported by EFE)
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Source: RPP
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