The balloon was almost certainly weather. The propulsion system is for station-keeping and it failed. The thing then blew over Canada and south over the US.
It collected all sorts of info and tried to transmit it to the out of range weather receive station in China. That’s why it had antennae.
The thing was enormous, obscuring the vision of Chinese in-orbit assets from seeing things in the US, either visually or RF. The orbital recon guys screaming is likely what got their weather dept guy fired.
It is just insane to imagine a country with an excellent space program and a working lander on the far side of the moon, and numerous orbital spacecraft, would send a balloon to collect military info.
Weather? You’re beyond naive.