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US Air Force Launches Secret Flying Twinkie
Spectrummag writes "One of the most secretive US Air Force spaceflights in decades, launched this month, is keeping aficionados guessing as to the nature of the secret. The 6000-kilogram, 8-meter X-37B, nicknamed the flying Twinkie because of its stubby-winged shape, is supposed to orbit Earth for several weeks, maneuver in orbit, then glide home. What's it for? Space expert James Oberg tracks the possibilities."
"That's a big twinkie..."
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
...it should be able to remain in orbit indefinitely without deteriorating.
This ain't rocket surgery.
A scaled up version of this could replace capabilities that the shuttle provided to the military.
Sure they launch sats on rockets now, but they can't do any of the maintenance with a rocket. Also is folks listened to the MIT lectures on building the shuttle, they mentioned that the engines in the shuttle wouldn't have to be torn down and rebuilt between flights if the electronics were built onto the engine such the engines could be tested without removing them.
I'm sure there are other what if style improvements that the shuttle built from blueprints could benefit from in the age of CAD that would aid in the rapid turnaround of any new vehicle designed with the Twinkie's test data.
So the article speculates that this is a testbed for on-orbit threat detection systems, which given the number of countries getting into the space gig seems like a reasonable thing to be working on.
So here's why bit I don't get: Why build it into a space plane rather than a regular satellite? Seems to me that you're adding an order of magnitude to the complexity of the mission -- do they really need the sensors back that badly, or is this maybe for something else?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Black Mesa
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
This is just conjecture. On a 'big' war day we are going to want to disable enemy satellites. We have ground based interceptors -- but there can be delays in launch windows, plus the 'bad' guys are going to be on guard and can take some evasive actions.
How about our little X-37 with a cargo bay and manipulator arm goes and pays those 'nasty' satellites a visit right now and attaches a few pounds of high explosive with a radio detonator. When the war starts you push a button and they all disappear!
Just in case they send a maintenance flight up, our little bomblets can also be equipped with a radio controlled 'spring' that detaches them from the satellite. No one is the wiser.
Possible?
Yet reusables have proven to be the way to go with every other form of transport. Or, to put it another way, it's a really bad idea to draw sweeping universal conclusions based on a first generation system.
Radar Operator: Colonel, you better have a look at this radar.
Colonel: What is it, son?
Radar Operator: I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant...
Jet Pilot: Dick. Dick, take a look out of starboard.
Co-Pilot: Oh my God, it looks like a huge...
Bird-Watching Woman: Pecker.
Bird-Watching Man: [raising binoculars] Ooh, Where?
Bird-Watching Woman: Over there. What sort of bird is that? Wait, it's not a woodpecker, it looks like someone's...
Army Sergeant: Privates. We have reports of an unidentified flying object. It has a long, smooth shaft, complete with...
Baseball Umpire: Two balls.
[looking up from game]
Baseball Umpire: What is that. It looks just like an enormous...
Chinese Teacher: Wang. pay attention.
Wang: I was distracted by that giant flying...
Musician: Willie.
Willie: Yeah?
Musician: What's that?
Willie: [squints] Well, that looks like a huge...
Colonel: Johnson.
Radar Operator: Yes, sir?
Colonel: Get on the horn to British Intelligence and let them know about this.
few pounds? a single hand grenade would take out any satellite. Imparting the energy from a single grenade or even a C4 charge will spin it out of control that the bird will never recover from.
you don't have to destroy it, just make it useless.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
X-15 and Dynasoar were first generation reusable.
Shuttle and Buran were second generation.
Yes, reusable have proven to be the way to go, but other forms of transport aren't going 17,500 miles an hour, getting up to 5,000 degrees and going millions of miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-109 - 3.9 million miles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-80 - 7 million miles
Or..., attach something that can futz with the function of the bird. Killing it outright certainly removes an asset from enemy hands, but turning that asset can, under certain conditions, be even more valuable.
I doubt this has anything at all to do with NASA, and NASA is in no position to reclaim anything from military projects.
This system is built on designs for flight test prototypes developed when the shuttle was being designed, and refined thereafter.
TFA says: "The official description of the mission talks of demonstrating "a rapid-turnaround airborne test bed." That makes sense, but there is no sign that anyone plans to fly the vehicle ever again" which is pure utter nonsense. You don't build a lander to fly once.
The article also suggests it will attempt never before attempted things such as automated approach and landing. Stuff the Russians demonstrated with SnowStorm. along with the automated rendezvous which Russian cargo launches have been doing for years.
This is the Air Forces access to payload deployment and return. There is no point in making it landable if all you need is delivery with no return.
This is the prototype of Predator Drone of space, and/or instantly deployable Command and Control platforms, with plausible dependability.
Ex-craniate folks, the Air Force does not intend to allow sat-killers go un-challenged when so much of US military operations rely on space based coms and control.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Right. Money pit.
That't why Scaled Composites http://scaled.com/ and Virgin Galactic http://www.virgingalactic.com/ are all betting money on re-entry vehicles.
Come on guy! Just because government projects do not have a profit motive does not mean it can never be workable.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Yes, reusable have proven to be the way to go, but other forms of transport aren't going 17,500 miles an hour, getting up to 5,000 degrees and going millions of miles.
Being harder isn't an excuse unto itself. Supersonic jets are more difficult than subsonic jets, which are more difficult than prop airplanes, which in turn are more difficult cars, trains, and bicycles. Yet somehow, we have managed up until now, yet I'm certain the same argument has been made throughout history that the next step couldn't be made.
The issue isn't with the reusable portion of the reusable spacecraft, but with its non-reusable parts. Thermal tiles, booster rockets, etc. As well, with the added weight, for which spacecraft are more severely punished than airplanes.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Because the X-37 is a NASA program and the X-37b started out as a NASA program.That is why there are pictures of it on Google images.
Trust me, real secret military spacecraft you learn about 20 years later.
Is Virgin Galactic SS1 going into orbit?
No.
Is Virgin Galactic SS2 going to go 3 million miles a mission and reach 17,500 miles an hour?
No.
SS2 is a VW T2 Microbus to the Shuttle/Buran being Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4s
SS2 will reach 2600 mph and 68 miles for up to 10 minutes of weightlessness
Shuttle reaches 17,580 mph and up to 385 miles for up to 17 days
Apples and grapes.
One that wasn't an orbital craft, and one that never flew at all. So, no, they aren't first generation craft in any useful sense.
Ok, so what? The shuttle goes fast and far, doesn't mean there cannot be a reusable orbital craft. Not to mention that 99.99999% of the 'far' is spent in almost no stress drifting around. It's nearly meaningless, even though it sounds impressive to the uneducated.
That seems like a stretch of capabilities considering that enemy satellites don't exactly have open, 'insert here,' interfaces on them where you could easily mount something like that. If the X-37 is going to be used for space militarization, I imagine it is much less about blowing things up and far more about interfacing with things on orbit. The X-37 has a decently sized cargo bay and a manipulator arm. It may well be capable of snagging certain classes of enemy satellites for reverse engineering. It also could probably be used for some sort of autonomous repair/maintenance of friendly satellites which is a field that is currently being researched significantly for both civilian and military purposes. Also, if the X-37 turns out to be fairly cheap and easy to reuse (like the space shuttle was supposed to be) it may become a good deployment mechanism for small scale recon sats in a hot environment. If it can sit on orbit for multiple weeks with a cargo bay full of five or so small orbital cameras, it could deploy those cameras when and where necessary to track enemy movement.
Then again, this is all just conjecture on my part. It may be something as simple as the air force wanting the ability fly up to a Chinese satellite and poke it inappropriately hard with the manipulator arm to break its camera or send it spinning uncontrollably out of its intended orbit.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
I was thinking 6,000,000,000 mg myself.
You have to start somewhere.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Supersonic jets are more difficult than subsonic jets
Interestingly, the useful speed limit of supersonic jets seems to have been exceeded decades ago, and they've abandoned the fastest designs. The B-58, B-70, SR-71, B-1A and Concorde are all defunct and have not been replaced with anything nearly as fast. They've given up. There are a few fast manned fighter planes, but the emphasis today is on gas mileage, not pure speed, and manned fighters may be on the way out in general.
Sometimes certain gee-whiz technologies just really don't turn out to be practical in the real world.
First off, while the article is a good one, it was actually written before launch. After the launch, there have been some intriguing details, particularly the fact that NOBODY outside of the classified world has been able to actually locate it in the sky. Normally amateur skywatchers are pretty good at locating satellites after they've launched, but apparently not in this case. Here's two possible explanations for this:
* the X-37B is testing low-visibility features, possibly either a stealthy payload shroud, low-visibility solar panels, or some other sort of camouflage/stealth system
* One possibility posited by Jim Oberg (the article author) elsewhere is that this may be the first test ever of an atmospheric orbital plane change, a technique desired since the 90s or earlier, where a spaceplane uses its wings to dip into the atmosphere while travelling at hypersonic speeds to alter its trajectory. The X-37B apparently doesn't have a high enough L/D ratio to perform an extreme plane change (e.g. near-equatorial to polar), but it may be able to alter its trajectory enough to make it damn hard to track from the ground.
Now, some people have been asking why a reusable spaceplane would be useful to the US Air Force. Some possibilities:
* The atmospheric plane change capability mentioned above, which would allow the Air Force to deploy satellites into trajectories unknown by those observed. One major problem with satellites is that other countries typically know when they'll be overhead, so they just make sure that anything they're trying to hide doesn't occur during those hours.
* If you add a retrieval arm or some other docking interface, you can potentially use the craft to alter the trajectory of existing satellites
* Although the X-37B was launched on an expendable Atlas V rocket, the Air Force recently put out a solicitation for proposals for a first-stage Reusable Booster System utilizing a technique known as boost-back. With boost-back, after the booster boosts the payload and/or 2nd stage, it then does a 180 and boosts/glides back to a landing strip so that it can be easily reused. Lockheed Martin tested a secretive prototype of such a system (which they dubbed "Revolver") a couple years ago. If you combine such Reusable Boosters with a beefier successor to the X-37B, you have a rapid-launch reusable "surge" capability long desired by the Air Force. Such a surge capability could be useful when you need to quickly launch many satellites, such as when you need to deploy many satellites over a particular region in wartime or many of your satellites are knocked out by anti-satellite weapons or solar storms. Currently the Air Force has to wait for several weeks or months per satellite.
For anybody interested in watching video of the launch (a rather beautiful launch of the Atlas V rocket), you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdCpuv9RCwE
Also, for those who are interested in finding out more, there's a lot of good discussion with plenty of current and former space professionals (including some posts by Jim Oberg, the author of the submission article) over at this NASASpaceFlight.com thread on the X-37B: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=21122.285
have not been replaced with anything nearly as fast
That is just what THEY want you to think!
Thanks for playing,
Mr Tin Foil
maker of hats.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
A KH-12 costs about 1.4 billion (at least) to build and launch, and are big enough that only Shuttle could bring them back, so refueling would be a good option there.
I really think this is an on orbit weapons platform, maybe a system that could be tasked with Rods from God and/or ASAT systems.
It's the government. It took them that long to get all the paperwork done.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
First, if we're hearing about it now, the technology has probably been used by the black ops folks for a couple of decades.
Second, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that there are technologies in this "twinkie" that do not have terrestrial sources.
Third, whoever is involved, I'd bet that zero elected officials have knowledge of, or have oversight of, the project. Black ops are a fifth branch of the military, better funded than the Marines, that operate completely without the knowledge of any elected officials. Probably the last two elected people who really know what's going on in black ops were Dick Cheney (god help us) and before him, George H.W. Bush (monkeyboy's dad). Bush I was probably briefed on some of this tech because he was the head of the CIA, and Cheney probably got let in on it because he's obviously a reptilian.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Not only that - "Twinkie defense" just got a whole new meaning with this...
until they get the creme filling based weapons operational... It's gonna look like a giant porn attack!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
The reason the shuttle is strapped onto the side of its launch stack is because it carries its payload internally. There are only two justifications for the engineering difficulties and operational hazards of this design. One is to have the expensive SSMEs attached to a recoverable part of the vehicle. The other is to give the vehicle the ability to recover payloads from orbit (read: steal enemy spy satellites.) With the end of the shuttle program looming, I'm guessing the Air Force is interested in maintaining that capability. And who knows... maybe they'll be nice and bring back Hubble, too.
Wrong on every count.
There is no 'original' version of the Shuttle - but there were a couple of dozen competing designs and concepts, some of which used ceramic tiles while others used titanium or other exotic metals in the form of shingles. However shingles were not only very (very) expensive and considerably heavier than tiles, the engineering work required to develop the shingles would have been considerably greater. Nor is there any evidence whatsoever that the thin shingles and their complex system of attachment to the structure (to deal with both thermal expansion of the tiles and thermal expansion of the structure, ditto with vibration) would have been any cheaper to build or operate than the ceramic tiles.
To the extent that NASA was discouraged from using titanium, that was because of the increasing and projected to further increase demand for titanium by the USAF and USN. In the end the superbombers and deep divers that would have used all that titanium were all cancelled in the late 60's and early 70's because of their expense.
Oh wait, wasn't the Shuttle budget sharply limited at the same time? Shit, it was. So much for your bean counter theory - the whole budget was being sharply trimmed around then. Sorry to introduce another fact showing how even more wrong you are, but I like completeness and accuracy.
Duh, that's exactly what happened. The engineers offered a design and the bean counters (or more correctly the engineers responsible for cost estimation) said "no way Jose", and the rest of the engineers went back to the drawing board.
Well, seeing as you're wrong about the bean counters and the Shuttle, it's only symmetrical that you're wrong about the Saturn being viable. It's one of only two launch systems that make the Shuttle look like a bargain. (The other being the late and unlamented Titan IV.)
Moderate it as a Troll if you will - but it's the truth. Yeah, it clashes with what 'everyone knows' about the Shuttle - buts that because most people know roughly nothing about the Shuttle beyond a haphazard collection of rumors, myths, and urban legends.
Because you can't see it doesn't make it impossible or unlikely.
Look, the weight of fuel needed to get the shuttle up to the altitude where the white knight drops spaceship one exceeds the weight for the rest of the trip to orbit.
The rockets are expended and jettisoned, and the external tank is half empty.
For you to state that it fundamentally won't cut it with no credentials, no studies, no NOTHING, that, my friend, is what won't cut it.
By the time the Shuttle reaches the altitude at which the White Knight launches Space Ship 1, its already well past Mach 3 and rapidly accelerating - and its speed that counts when achieving orbit.