U.S. officials said Monday that a significant portion of the balloon's payload was recovered on Monday. The reconnaissance platform was estimated to be 30-feet-long and contained all of craft's tech gear and antennas.
"Recovery operations concluded Feb. 16 off the coast of South Carolina, after U.S. Navy assets assigned to U.S. Northern Command successfully located and retrieved debris from the high-altitude PRC surveillance balloon shot down Feb. 4, 2023," it said in a statement.
"Final pieces of debris are being transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory in Virginia for counterintelligence exploitation, as has occurred with the previous surface and subsurface debris recovered," the statement said. "U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard vessels have departed the area. Air and maritime safety perimeters have been lifted."
