A few seconds after the second stage fires, the fairing, a protective shroud that surrounds the cargo at the rocket's tip, will split in half, revealing the classified payload: a 29-foot-long delta-wing spacecraft called the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. It might look like a miniature version of the space shuttle, but this spacecraft is unmanned, and instead of NASA, the U.S. Air Force is operating it. The moment the X-37B emerges from the shroud will mark the fulfillment of a dream the Department of Defense has been pursuing for nearly 50 years: the orbital flight of a military vehicle that combines an airplane's agility with a spacecraft's capacity to travel in orbit at 5 miles per second.
It may even play the role of bomber,
The most daring job of a space plane, and the one least discussed, is the role of a bomber. The craft could fly over targets within an hour of launch to release cone-shaped re-entry vehicles that would both protect and guide weapons through the atmosphere. A craft the size of the X-37B could carry 1000- or 2000-pound re-entry vehicles armed with precision munitions like bunker-busting penetrators or small-diameter bombs, or simply use the explosive impact of kinetic rods cratering at hypersonic speeds to destroy targets.
My blog (mostly photos): Fort Ephemera - My Flickr Photostream
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ―Galen Rowell
Not sure what it does that a cruise-missile can't in terms of bombs, but yay, I guess. It's hard to get excited about something that's so shrouded in secrecy that I can't really tell what it's supposed to do.
Today, with American technologies probably ahead of those of the rest of the world by an order of magnitude, the nonweaponization of space may be even more in the national interest than in Eisenhower's day. Why fix something that is not broken?
Logic fail. We want to maintain our position of leadership. Us making pleasant noises about the freedom of space will not prevent others from weaponizing space themselves. We all decry rubber-banding in video games. I don't really want to deal with it when it comes to our national security policy.
Today, with American technologies probably ahead of those of the rest of the world by an order of magnitude, the nonweaponization of space may be even more in the national interest than in Eisenhower's day. Why fix something that is not broken?
Logic fail. We want to maintain our position of leadership. Us making pleasant noises about the freedom of space will not prevent others from weaponizing space themselves. We all decry rubber-banding in video games. I don't really want to deal with it when it comes to our national security policy.
And remember that China successfully shot down a satellite in 2008. Per the article I posted, that well may have been a factor in keeping this project in go mode.
My blog (mostly photos): Fort Ephemera - My Flickr Photostream
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ―Galen Rowell
Enough wrote:And remember that China successfully shot down a satellite in 2008. Per the article I posted, that well may have been a factor in keeping this project in go mode.
China's test was against a satellite at 537 miles. Our takedown of USA 193 the follwing year was at only 133 nautical miles.
Sith Lord wrote:Not sure what it does that a cruise-missile can't in terms of bombs, but yay, I guess. It's hard to get excited about something that's so shrouded in secrecy that I can't really tell what it's supposed to do.
don't need a pesky navy flotilla (or subs) hanging around in strike range?
Wow... the Air Force has created an RC Space Shuttle. What problem does this solve other than to satisfy a contingent of brass who've had a bug up their ass since the space program was taken from them 50 years ago.
Do we get one of these in Civ 5? We better damn well get to make one of these in Civ 5.
It's 109 first team All-Americans.
It's a college football record 61 bowl appearances.
It's 34 bowl victories.
It's 24 Southeastern Conference Championships.
It's 15 National Championships.
At some places they play football. At Alabama we live it.
RLMullen wrote:Wow... the Air Force has created an RC Space Shuttle. What problem does this solve other than to satisfy a contingent of brass who've had a bug up their ass since the space program was taken from them 50 years ago.
You can read more perspective in the original thread. Basically, this craft is the latest iteration of a very long X series. It's a technology test vehicle that probably won't go into production.
The most important context is that the AF could, if needed, quickly restore American manned access to low earth orbit at a time when our civilian space program is about to lose that basic capability.
Since the last lander lifted off from Luna the space program has been in reverse.
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The US air force has announced that will land a test flight of an unmanned experimental space plane that has been orbiting the Earth for more than a year.
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The plane ... will land on a 15,000-foot airstrip at Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara, California, sometime in June.
Initially, the plane was scheduled to land in November, but the mission was extended to test the vehicle, an air force spokeswoman told the Guardian.
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"We knew from post-flight assessments from the first mission that [Orbital Test Vehicle-1] could have stayed in orbit longer," Bunko wrote. "So one of the goals of this mission was to push the envelope – see how much farther we could push that on-orbit duration."
After the current flight lands, Bunko said, the Pentagon will conduct a re-flight of the first vehicle in the fall.
A pilotless space plane developed by the US Air Force has landed safely back on Earth after spending 469 days in orbit, officials said.
The robotic X-37B, a sort of miniature space shuttle weighing just five tonnes and measuring some 29 feet (8.8 meters) long, touched down Saturday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in western California, the Air Force said in a statement.
The liftoff of an Atlas 5 rocket set to carry the robotic X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-3), which looks like a mini space shuttle, has now been slipped to Nov. 27, pending confirmation that the rocket range can support the launch.
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The postponement stems from an ongoing investigation of an engine glitch during an Oct. 5 flight of a Delta 4 booster, a relative to the Atlas 5. That launcher experienced a lower-than-normal upper-stage engine chamber pressure when it launched to place a Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF-3 spacecraft into orbit.
Holding off on the liftoff of the Atlas 5 will allow for additional flight data anomaly investigation activities of the Delta 4 engine glitch and a thorough "crossover assessment" for the X-37B OTV launch vehicle, officials said.
Although the Atlas 5 that's being readied to propel the unpiloted OTV-3 into Earth orbit utilizes a different model of the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RL-10 engine than the Delta 4, Air Force Space Command commander Gen. William Shelton asked for a discretionary accident investigation board (AIB) to investigate why the Delta 4 RL-10B-2 upper-stage engine did not perform as expected. As its standard process, the Air Force reviews all flight data to determine if it's ready to proceed with the next liftoff.
kinetic rods>?
holy shit.
whats the energy release of a 5' Rebar dropped from orbit?
whats the energy release of 1000 5' Rebars dropped from orbit?
Quote:
The most daring job of a space plane, and the one least discussed, is the role of a bomber. The craft could fly over targets within an hour of launch to release cone-shaped re-entry vehicles that would both protect and guide weapons through the atmosphere. A craft the size of the X-37B could carry 1000- or 2000-pound re-entry vehicles armed with precision munitions like bunker-busting penetrators or small-diameter bombs, or simply use the explosive impact of kinetic rods cratering at hypersonic speeds to destroy targets.
Why dont they use it as a garbage truck and start picking up all the space junk circling our planet. It would make it far safer for the people who go there, the space station of now and future, and even the people on the planet. Clean it up. Pick up after yourselves.
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The Atlas rocket and its Centaur upper stage performed flawlessly through the first 17 minutes and 34 seconds. The mission then switched into a classified mode, and an information blackout followed.
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The launch of the X-37B was the first re-flight of one of the experimental spaceplanes. The vehicle aboard the Atlas V was launched in April 2010 on a 224-day technology demonstration mission, the exact nature of which remains classified.
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Air Force officials say there is a chance the third mission will culminate with a landing on the shuttle runway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
The service also is considering consolidating X-37B launch, landing and turn-around operations on Florida's Space Coast.
Boeing’s X-37B space plane broke its endurance record in orbit last month when it surpassed 470 days.
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The record for the longest space flight had been set by the previous mission by the X-37B for the OTV-2 that remained in orbit for 469 days. The first flight for OTV-1 took place in 2010 and lasted 225 days.
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I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake. http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
The U.S. Air Force's mysterious unmanned space plane, the X-37B, is about to come back to Earth after more than two years in orbit on a mission the military won't tell us much about.
The X-37B is expected to land at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the Air Force said.
The base did not give an exact time for the landing, but a notice to aviators and mariners on the Federal Aviation Administration's website said airspace around the Southern California base would be closed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT Tuesday.
I still remembering seeing some type of little orbiter spaceplane at the 1990 or 1991 airshow in Chattanooga. It said US Mail on the side I think. Lemme see if I can find it.
Aha this was it....
I remember it being about the size of a VW Beetle.
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"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
Odin wrote:Not sure what it does that a cruise-missile can't in terms of bombs, but yay, I guess. It's hard to get excited about something that's so shrouded in secrecy that I can't really tell what it's supposed to do.
WE can pretend it is for knocking out deadly asteroids?
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!
Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
If they can stay up in space, almost indefinitely, they could have a hundred orbiting Earth. Someone gets out of line or a target of opportunity presents itself, boom instant death from space. As fast as you can give the order.
For this latest flight of the X-37B space plane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office has teamed up with several partners, including NASA, to test experimental space technologies.
"With the demonstrated success of the first three missions, we're able to shift our focus from initial checkouts of the vehicle to testing of experimental payloads," Randy Walden, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office overseeing the flight, said in a statement. [The Air Force's X-37B Space Plane Explained (Infographic)]
The forthcoming mission will test an experimental propulsion system jointly developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and Space and Missile Systems Center. In addition, the X-37B craft will carry a NASA advanced materials investigation.
The U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane blasted into Earth orbit today, kicking off the robotic vehicle's clandestine fourth mission — as well as the first flight of a tiny solar-sailing spacecraft.
The robotic X-37B space plane launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket today (May 20) at 11:05 a.m. EDT (1505 GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
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Air Force officials have said that mission number four — known as Orbital Test Vehicle-4 (OTV-4) — will concentrate less on the X-37B itself and more on the gear the spacecraft is carrying to orbit.
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Also on board the Atlas V were 10 miniscule "cubesats," including the LightSail solar sail that was developed by the nonprofit Planetary Society. LightSail aims to prove out key solar-sailing technology ahead of a more ambitious orbital trial next year.
A few payloads onboard the OTV-4 craft have been identified.
Aerojet Rocketdyne has announced that its XR-5A Hall Thruster had completed initial on-orbit validation testing onboard the X-37B space plane.
It is also known that the vehicle carries a NASA advanced materials investigation, as well as an experimental propulsion system developed by the Air Force.
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Asked about any interest in increasing the X-37B fleet size, [Winston Beauchamp, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for Space] said that the number of vehicles currently in use is fine due to the pace of experiments it conducts.
The U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane is just eight days away from setting a record on its current clandestine mission.
If the robotic vehicle stays aloft until March 25, it will break the X-37B mission-duration mark of 674 days, which was established back in October 2014.
It's unclear whether that will actually happen, however; the Air Force is tight-lipped about most X-37B payloads and activities, including touchdown plans.
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The current mission, OTV-4, lifted off on May 20, 2015.
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All four X-37B flights have launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and the first three landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But the Air Force has been working to consolidate X-37B launch and landing activities on Florida's Space Coast, and that vision includes bringing the vehicles down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), which is next door to Cape Canaveral.
Rumors have swirled that OTV-4 will land at KSC, but that's all they are at the moment — rumors. Capt. Annicelli declined to confirm or refute such speculation.
They should announce a new super stealth version, then launch nothing into space... literally a rocket with no payload.. just to keep people on their toes..
SpaceX is set to launch the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane into orbit today, with a launch window that opens at 9:50 AM ET (6:50 AM PT). The Boeing-built uncrewed spaceplane most recently completed a two year orbital mission before returning to Earth in May, and it’s going back up hopefully this morning, though weather conditions are looking only 50 percent favorable ahead of launch, with SpaceX hoping to get the launch off the ground ahead of hurricane Irma’s arrival.
This is another first for SpaceX – the first launch of the X-37B, which has run four missions previously but always launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. SpaceX gained its U.S. military payload certification in 2015, and the USAF is hoping to diversify its orbital test vehicle launch capabilities with SpaceX with this launch, provided everything goes smoothly.
