Miller, the spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said the tail portion broke off and hit the ground about a quarter-mile from the main section.
The craft is known as a Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, and can be used to detect hostile missiles and aircraft. Such blimps have been used extensively in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to provide radar surveillance around U.S. bases and other sensitive sites.
The craft has a squat body, large fins and a rounded protrusion on its belly.
When in use, it is tethered to the ground, unmanned, like a balloon on a string, its cable carrying power up to the blimp and sending data back down to a computer. It can reach as high as 10,000 feet, according to its maker, Raytheon Co.
“My understanding is, from having seen these break loose in Afghanistan on a number of occasions, we could get it to descend and then we'll recover it and put it back up,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said at the Pentagon as the journey unfolded. “This happens in bad weather.”
Raytheon referred questions to the military. But on its website, the defense contractor said the chances of the tether breaking are very small because it is made of a durable synthetic fiber and has withstood storms of more than 115 mph.
The blimp was operating at the Aberdeen Proving Ground as part of a test of the systems that defend the nation’s capital against airborne attack. The loss of the blimp has not weakened those defenses, Miller said.
