The Chinese spy balloon that floated across the United States last week before being shot down off the South Carolina coast was equipped with antennas capable of collecting communications signals — as well as other intelligence-gathering equipment, the State Department said Thursday.

A senior State Department official said Thursday that the balloon also carried large solar panels capable of running various data sensors, the Wall Street Journal reported.

It is not immediately clear what kinds of communications China was trying to collect, nor was it immediately known what information the balloon was able to obtain — though Jedidiah Royal, the US assistant defense secretary for the Indo-Pacific, told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Thursday that the military has “some very good guesses.”

The latest US assessment contradicts China’s official claims that the balloon was part of a civilian meteorological research project, with the State Department official saying Beijing has deployed balloons over 40 countries across five of the seven continents in the recent past.

The official emphasized that the equipment on the balloon was “was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons.”

The balloon saga began when the Pentagon announced that the device had entered US airspace on Feb. 2.

The Defense Department says the balloon was first detected over Alaska in late January. It subsequently traveled through US airspace from Montana to the Carolinas before it was shot down off Myrtle Beach on Feb. 4.

Senior FBI officials told reporters just a few pieces of the balloon had arrived at the FBI’s Quantico, Va., lab for investigation. So far, investigators have parts of the balloon canopy, wiring, and what one official called “a very small amount of electronics.” The official said it was “very early for us to assess what the intent was and how the device was operating.”

The US also confirmed for the first time Thursday that U-2 spy planes monitored the device as it traversed American airspace in order to determine its capabilities.

The State Department revealed the balloon was manufactured by an unidentified company that is an “approved vendor” of the Chinese military.

“The company also advertises balloon products on its website and hosts videos from past flights, which appear to have overflown at least US airspace and airspace of other countries,” the official said, according to the Journal. “These advertised balloon videos seemingly have similar flight patterns as the balloons we have been discussing this week.”

In an interview with a French news network earlier this week, Chinese ambassador to Paris Lu Shaye called on the US to return the remains of the balloon that were retrieved by Navy personnel off Myrtle Beach.

“If a person picks up something on the street and knows who the owner is, he should return it to the owner,” Le reasoned.

Underscoring the tensions between Washington and Beijing, China’s defense minister refused to take a phone call from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss the balloon issue on Saturday, the Pentagon said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a planned trip to Beijing last weekend.

In the days since the balloon was shot down, the Biden administration has faced criticism for its handling of the device.

“It defies belief that there was not a single opportunity to safely shoot this spy balloon prior to the coast of South Carolina,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “By the administration’s logic we would allow the Chinese to fly surveillance balloons over the Pentagon or other sensitive sites and populated areas.”

With Post wires