Amateurs Spy On US Spy Plane

arshadk writes with this excerpt from Wired's Danger Room: "The X-37B has generated intense interest, long before it ever left the ground. Boeing originally developed the 29-foot unmanned craft — a kind of miniature Space Shuttle — for NASA. Then, the military took over in 2004, and the space plane went black. Its payloads were classified, its missions hush-hush. ... You can even see the space plane for yourself: The X-37B is traveling in a slightly elliptical orbit more than 200 miles up, swooping from 43 degrees north latitude to 43 degrees south."

Comments

Was that supposed to be a summary?

[Goaway]

Is that just three sentences copypasted at random, with no attempt whatsoever made to explain what this article is about, or what?

Re:Was that supposed to be a summary?

[Dan East]

Here's a summary:
Each time the X-37B is launched a bunch of amateurs make a game out of finding it in orbit. It took a month to find it using telescopes on the first mission, but only 4 days on the current mission. It is currently in a very low (lower than the space station) non-polar orbit, which is unusual for spy satellites, because it will never cross large areas of the planet. So they presume it is used for spying on specific areas on this mission, likely the Middle East as it has good coverage of that area. Basically all that's known is its orbit, not what it is capable of nor what it is actually doing.

Re:Was that supposed to be a summary?

[camperdave]

If they wanted good coverage of the Middle East, they'd put the bird in a Molniya style orbit. This sounds like a circular orbit

Re:Was that supposed to be a summary?

[WhiteDragon]

If they wanted good coverage of the Middle East, they'd put the bird in a Molniya style orbit. This sounds like a circular orbit

Thanks for the wikipedia-visit-causing post :-D (+1 informative, if I had mod points)

Re:Was that supposed to be a summary?

[amorsen]

A Molniya orbit has the disadvantage that the apogee is over the area you want to watch. The X-37B seems to prefer being quite low; I do not believe you could construct a useful Molniya orbit with such a low apogee. At perigee it would be extremely low and quite fast, which means lots of air resistance.

Re:Was that supposed to be a summary?

[johnny cashed]

I thought Molniya orbits were for primarily higher latitudes, which is where the Middle East isn't.

Not to mention, the apogee dwell occurs at, well, near and at apogee, which is also not what you want for an imaging satellite. Unless you want it swooping by the earth at the perigee, where it is going it's fastest.

Orbital clues

[similar_name]

From the article

The typical spy satellite has a polar orbit...

...The X-37B, on the other hand, is orbiting around the fat middle of the plane...

...The orbit lends credence to the idea that the space plane is an orbiting spy.

Just sayin'

Where to look

[Ironchew]

http://www.heavens-above.com/
Enter your coordinates (requires a login, otherwise it's 0 degrees N / 0 degrees E) and look for the X-37B link under "Satellites".

Metricate, damnit!

[Stormwatch]

29-foot

To 95% of world's population: that's 8.83m.

Re:Metricate, damnit!

[SteveM]

Actually, that's true for 100% of the world's population.

Re:Metricate, damnit!

[danbeck]

No. We already use it for any serious scientific or engineering work (with the exception if this idiot blunder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter)

Why does it make you so upset that we use SI for our recipes and street signs?

Re:Metricate, damnit!

[Opportunist]

Deducing from this mission, I'd say 29.

Re:Metricate, damnit!

[PopeRatzo]

To 95% of world's population: that's 8.83m.

Yeah, but that 95% doesn't have an X-37B, so it really doesn't matter, does it?

Our super-secret spy space-drone, our units of measurement. That's how we roll up in this bitch.

Re:Metricate, damnit!

[camperdave]

If it's gold bricks, then they are measured in Troy tons which are lighter than standard avoirdupois units. Thus the ton of feathers would be heavier.

Re:Metricate, damnit!

[jo_ham]

How do you know? Perhaps the other 95% are better at keeping their secret spy planes actually secret? :p

Re:Metricate, damnit!

[camperdave]

That's the "beauty" of the imperial system. Not only do you always measure things in two units (feet and inches, pounds and ounces), and use fractions which vary by unit, but your choice of measurement unit varies by what you're measuring and where you're measuring it. It's amazing we got any science done at all.

Re:Where's The Money From?

[markov_chain]

Well of course it's easy, they don't send people up. Being man-rated makes the space shuttle vastly more complex.

Re:Let me assure you

[Abstrackt]

Here's a handy chart to aid in identification.

Re:Where's The Money From?

[danbeck]

No, I find it absolutely wonderful that our military is broad and powerful enough to nearly 100% guarantee that our scientists and engineers have the time to spend on civilian pursuits like medical breakthroughs, discovering the far edges of our universe and creating sweet shit like velcro. It's pitiful that people like you think freedom costs nothing. A few hundred years ago, you'd be a shit shoveling peasant in some god forsaken hell hole. Look at you know though, you can follow the oust of Mubarak from Egypt from the comfort of your reddit bookmark.

Re:Let me assure you

[2.7182]

One thing you can be sure of - if you see a flying object, and it's unidentified, then it is a UFO.

Classified != Secret

[Anonymous Coward]

The X-37B is partially classified. It is not anywhere near secret. There is a huge difference.

Classified projects are frequently used for promotion and propaganda. Secret projects are actually kept secret.

Re:Classified != Secret

[VortexCortex]

Like the SR-71, no information is worse than a little info -- So they released inaccurate info to sate the interested parties, best of both worlds.

Re:Hard to believe

[WAN Rover]

How will you be able to tell when "complete invisibility is achieved" ? When you can't see the invisible object...?

Re:Hard to believe

[jd]

When Wonder Woman sues you for patent infringement. Duh!

Checking out Libya?

[vitriolum]

Looks like the current orbit will take it right over Tripoli.
http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37375

Re:Where's The Money From?

[jd]

Yeah, watching nudist beaches is indeed more specialized, but I dispute the claim that this makes them less useful to scientists. If anything, geeks need devices like that more.

The real question

[aled]

yes, yes, that's interesting but what we really want to know is when it will become self aware and start killing humans?

Re:Hard to believe

[camperdave]

A matte black satellite against the black background of space is going to be hard to spot.

Re:Where's The Money From?

[jd]

Fear earns nothing but violence and destruction. Fear and violence are the acts of despots determined to keep what is not theirs.

The Borgia crime family - one of the greatest mafiosa gangs in history - presided over the Enlightenment and largely caused most of it. True, there was a lot of fear, but centralized justice and peace on Earth there wasn't.

Scotland and the outlying islands achieved a murder rate average of 0.00000045 per thousand people per year over its first four millenia of occupation. It also had very very little scientific or technical development (well, ok, they invented the stone circle, the method of raising monoliths, and for some reason apartment complexes, but not a whole lot else).

And these guys don't seem too afraid of central justice. Oh, and the ATF being busted for smuggling guns into Mexico for 6-10 years? Yeah, right, those're the guys I'd trust to defend my freedom. Not.

Cambridge University, one of the leading institutions in the world for scientific research, is one of the most left-wing and has some of the greatest protections against retribution and indeed any kind of central justice system. It was even founded by criminals. Many top US universities for science could say the same, except for perhaps the being founded by criminals bit.

The US military recently admitted death-squads in Afghanistan went out killing civilians for fun. C'mon, the "one rotten apple" gets old after the first few hundred.

Freedom from getting stabbed by my neighbor? How about freedom from shoot-outs over where the dog chose to go? Besides, the US has a higher murder rate than almost any other country in the world.

It also has the highest infant mortality rate in the Western world, a preventable death rate double that of the next-highest Western nation, one of the poorest ratings in education and basic literacy, a low rating in overall happiness, the highest rate of incarceration outside of China, an execution rate comparable to North Korea, and a military budget in excess of the rest of the top ten combined. So I'm not seeing a whole lot of this freedom that all this money is supposedly buying.

Well, outside of Wachovia bank that is. They seem to have bought a whole lot of freedom, albeit at the cost of a Mexican civil war and a few hundred thousand lives.

The Victorians once believed as you did. Earned them a crime wave. Then they discarded retribution and threats for moderation and civility, resulting in a rebirth of British democracy.

Re:Hard to believe

[ZankerH]

If the US Military wants to not be seen, they can do it. This is probably some object they put up their for the enemy to track. They are very good at what they do!

This is space we're talking about. And There Ain't No Stealth In Space.

Re:Where's The Money From?

[Noughmad]

I'm quite sure that if the education program had the military's budget it wouldn't be as bad as it is now.

Possible uses

[kupekhaize]

It's amazing what you can do when you've got an object in space that you can set up with minimal overhead. I mean, hey, its not like those big expensive spy satellites have a limited fuel or anything. Sure, Libya had always been kind of a nuisance, but I assume there weren't that many spy satellites within range before. One of the features of this thing was that it had oversized engines for what it was, meaning it could make drastic orbit changes at short notice. Anyone know how long its been in this orbit over Libya?

It's been speculated (more assumption...) that the X-37B could be a test platform for new surveillance equipment. Could be they have some new cameras with some awesome resolution to test out. Might be some kind of new sensors, or maybe some kind of a mirror or laser communication relay, to bounce a signal for someone covert down in Tripoli. For all we know, it could be some crazy new concept we won't hear about for another 20 years.

Anyone know if its orbit brings it within close proximity of any other satellites? Some people have said it could be used to interfere with the satellites from other countries. Maybe, its secretly plotting to activate SkyNet in conjunction with another satellite that recently went up and we have no idea what its doing..

Or, for all we know, its just a camera, the same one they've been using on the other spy satellites for years. Just one that has lots of fuel, and thus, lots of orbit changes before coming down to be refueled and given newer tech cameras.

The world may never know. Or may already know, and just not know it.

Re:Hard to believe

[TheRaven64]

Define 'black'. If you're using the definition from every day conversation, then you mean 'something that doesn't emit or reflect light in the narrow band of the EM spectrum visible to human eyes' and that's pretty easy to achieve. If you use a more scientific definition, it's much harder. If it's actually doing anything, then it will be generating heat. Every time it changes orbit, it will be firing a rocket, which has a huge IR signature and is trivial to track with very cheap equipment.

This is the problem with most stealth technology - it only protects against a narrow range of sensor technologies.