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USAF's Robotic X-37B Orbiter Launched For Test Flight

Posted by timothy on from the hope-no-one-fell-asleep-inside dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt: "The United States Air Force's novel robotic X-37B space plane is tucked inside the bulbous nose cone of an unmanned rocket that blasted off Thursday from Florida on a mission shrouded in secrecy. ... The unmanned military Orbital Test Vehicle 1 (OTV-1) — also known as the X-37B — lifted off at 7:52 pm EDT atop an Atlas 5 rocket on a mission that is expected to take months testing new spacecraft technologies. ... Key objectives of the space plane's first flight include demonstration and validation of guidance, navigation, and control systems – including a 'do-it-itself' autonomous re-entry and landing at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base with neighboring Edwards Air Force Base as a backup."

4 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Space without astronauts by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's the space shuttle we lost, OK at 1/4 scale, but without the triple redundancy because it doesn't have to carry people. It can do the missions.

    The future of space, at least in the near term, doesn't look so great for astronauts.

    I wonder if it would scale up to shuttle size?

    --
    Bruce Perens.
    1. Re:Space without astronauts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Nope, there is no way to remotely deploy the landing gear on the shuttle. That is, unless it has been rigged for unmanned flight - known as RCO (Remote Controlled Orbiter) mode - beforehand, using the so called IFM (In-Flight Maintenance)cable. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-3XX#Remote_Control_Orbiter

      This wasn't developed until after the Columbia accident. So yes, the Soviets with their unmanned Buran flight were first.

      The Reason for not letting the computer control the landing gear deployment is simple: It's a one-way procedure. Once deployed, you cannot retract the gear and close the orbiter's underside - that can only take place on the ground. So, if a computer glitch would deploy the gear before or during the "hot" phase during reentry, there'd be no way to return the craft in one piece, with fatal consequences for the crew if it happened at a point where (re)docking with the ISS and waiting for a rescue shuttle is no longer an option.

      You know, folks, sometimes having a human in control isn't all that bad.

  2. podbay by idji · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is the podbay big enough to hold Chinese or Russian satellites and bring them back down again? That seems to me what is really going on here - why otherwise would the USAF really care about getting stuff back down again? - they don't need their own satellites back - let them burn up in reentry - they are not collecting particulate matter, and I don't believe they will be going around hoovering up space junk. If the thing can stay up therewith it's solar panels for 270 days, maybe it is just wandering around picking up "rogue" satellites, attaching small engines and letting the satellites deorbit.

  3. What's with the fairing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone know what the panels lining the rocket fairing are for?

    http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/scitech/2009/10/22/nasas-secret-space-plane-nears-maiden-voyage?slide=4