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