China’s gigantic airship hangar just got bigger

An already absolutely gigantic shed in a remote region of northwest China is now even bigger after receiving a 300-foot-long addition. The War Zone tracks the facility’s development, which is tied to the country’s development of high-altitude airships that could potentially gather intelligence, facilitate long-range communications, provide early warning capabilities for missile defense, or even possibly serve as launch platforms for drones and other payloads.

But why would China need to make what is one of the largest, if not the largest, airship hangars on the planet any larger than it already is? This development raises the possibility that China may be considering developing larger airships, capable of extremely high performance and load-carrying capabilities.

The addition to the hangar, located near Bosten Lake in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, can be seen in new satellite images that The War Zone obtained from Planet Labs. Construction of the original 1,150-foot-long, 450-foot-wide hangar, which is also extremely tall, began in 2013 and appears to have been completed in 2015. To give an idea of ​​the size of the structure, in length and width at least, a U.S. Navy Nimitz The supercarrier-class aircraft would have already been able to fit in the hangar with 100 feet of spare space on each side before the extension was added.

A review of additional Planet Labs imagery shows that work on the hangar extension was largely complete by July of this year.

In 2022, our Downlink Team works identified on the foundations of the hangar extension, as well as other construction indicating a planned significant expansion of the entire site, as set out below.

A separate, smaller, 450-foot-long rectangular foundation adjacent to the south side of the hangar, which was visible in 2022, has since morphed into what appears to be a multi-story structure, with an adjacent enclosed lot. Work on what is likely a cluster of administrative buildings immediately to the east also appears to be complete.

It is unclear what prompted the hangar expansion. As previously mentioned, the structure is linked to Chinese airship developments. Last year, separate satellite images from the private company BlackSky emerged showing what appeared to be a teardrop-shaped airship or aerostat over the area of ​​operation extending from the hangar to the west.

The apparently lighter-than-air craft seen in the BlackSky image was noticeably smaller than the hangar, as well as other known Chinese airship designs. The Yuan Meng and the BNST-KT-02, which are said to be around 75 and 100 meters long, respectively, are prime examples that you can learn more about here.

It is true that hangars of this size are often used to house multiple airships or other lighter-than-air craft at once. However, a larger rectangular cradle has been seen in front of the Xinjiang hangar in the past, making it clear that it is intended, at least in part, to house much larger models. A patent for a similar, if not identical, cradle for moving airships on the ground is also linked to a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) element known as Unit 63660, according to a report last year by CNN.

The new expansion of what was already one of the world’s largest hangars only adds to the evidence that the facility is intended to house large airships, including those of a sensitive nature, and indicates the potential for even larger designs to operate there in the future.

The hangar and its associated facilities are located near other PLA sites related to missile defense and anti-satellite activities, as well as work on electromagnetic pulse and directed energy weapon technologies. The entire area is sometimes referred to as East Korla, in reference to its proximity to Korla, Xinjiang’s second largest city and the capital of the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, as well as Bohu.

“Unit 63660 was not mentioned in Chinese media until around 2019, when it became clear that the unit was based in Luoyang City, Henan Province, and had a test facility in Xinjiang Province,” according to a 2023 article from the U.S. Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI). “Recent announcements of the unit’s purchases indicate that some of the purchased items would be used for satellite applications. The unit has quickly received several patents related to high-power microwaves (HPM) and electromagnetic pulses (EP) since its inception.”

The city of Luoyang is about 1,440 miles southwest of where the hangar is located in Xinjiang.

“A 2023 recruitment notice for Unit 63660 stated that it was born in the “two-bomb, one-satellite era” and embodied the “Malan spirit,” indicating its historical connection to the former GAD (General Armament Department of the PLA) Base 21 in Xinjiang Province, whose unit number was Unit 63650,” the CASI 2023 document added. “The recruitment notice also states that the unit is involved in advanced weapons testing and evaluation in the fields of electronics and information technology, military weapons development, aerospace technology, and artificial intelligence unmanned systems.”

Base 21, which later came under the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF), is a highly classified nuclear testing facility headquartered in Malan, across Bosten Lake from the hangar. The PLA announced earlier this year its intention to disband the PLASSF and replace it with three separate entities, the Aerospace Force, the Cyber ​​Force, and the Information Support Force.

The PLA Air Force’s (PLAAF) secret Malan Air Base, a major test and evaluation center, is also located near the northern shore of the lake.

All this is in accordance with The War ZoneThe PLA’s previous assessments that the hangar and associated airship developments may well be closely tied, at least to some extent, to Chinese missile defense, anti-satellite warfare, and other advanced military research and development efforts. At the same time, the PLA has a clear interest in airships and other lighter-than-air craft for use in a variety of more conventional roles, including as platforms for launching munitions and unmanned aerial system swarms. Transporting outsized cargo also remains a very viable role for large airships. This reflects a growing trend within militaries around the world, including the U.S. military, but China is an undisputed leader in this area.

The types of craft that would fill part of the newly expanded hangar in northwest China could be equally enormous, with extreme range and endurance capabilities. Large, high-altitude, long-endurance lighter-than-air craft provide platforms with particularly wide fields of view for sensors and communications systems that can operate over long distances and/or for extended periods in a designated area. Using solar power in particular, unmanned airships and balloons could potentially operate for months or even years without needing to land, acting as pseudo-satellites supporting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), communications relay, and other missions.

The Chinese government has already invested heavily in stratospheric intelligence-gathering capabilities using powered and/or steerable high-altitude balloons and other lighter-than-air vehicles. capable of regional and intercontinental operations. This has become a famous cause Last year, a Chinese spy balloon intruded into U.S. airspace and was shot down after flying over parts of the United States and Canada. The incident drew attention to previous sightings of similar balloons in the Pacific region. A more airship-like design, with broad similarities to the Yuan Meng, was also spotted over the South China Sea near the Philippine island of Luzon in 2022. Control of various shoals in the waters west of Luzon is particularly contested between China and the Philippines.

Earlier this year, Taiwanese authorities also accused their mainland counterparts of engaging in a campaign of psychological warfare and threatening the safety of civilian air traffic in the region, launching a series of high-altitude balloons over the island. In another example of lighter-than-air craft being used for generalized harassment outside the context of open conflict, North Korea sent hordes of balloons carrying feces and other waste over South Korea earlier this year. These incidents, which disrupted civilian air traffic and raised concerns about what the balloons’ payloads might contain, underscore the very real potential threats that lighter-than-air craft can pose.

The expansion of the hangar in the Xinjiang desert only underscores China’s ambitions for lighter-than-air aircraft and hints at the potential for even larger and more capable airship designs on the horizon.

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