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US 'Space Warplane' Spying On Chinese Spacelab
PolygamousRanchKid sends this excerpt from El Reg:
"The U.S. Air Force's second mysterious mini-space shuttle, the X-37B, could be spying on China's space laboratory and the first piece of its space station, Tiangong-1. Amateur space trackers told the British Interplanetary Society publication Spaceflight that the black-funded spaceplane seemed to be orbiting the Earth in tandem with Tiangong-1, or the Heavenly Palace, leading the magazine to speculate that its unknown mission is to spy on [the lab]. ... The lab is unmanned for the moment, so all there'd be to study is the technology of the craft and what experiments it's doing. Still, the U.S. is hugely suspicious of China's space endeavors, so it's more than possible that they'd want to get a look at Tiangong-1 just in case it's doing anything unexpected."
Update: 01/06 21:50 GMT by S : Further calculations have shown that this is not the case after all.
Of course it is, and that's exactly what everybody expects.
But wait...why would you spy on the spy bot, you know what it's doing...or do you?
Have I said too much?
http://youtu.be/OGPD0ZBiMs0
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
The X-37B is no more a "warplane" than the SR-71 or U-2.
Is it spying on Tian-dong-1? I rearry don't think so. I think the fact that their orbits intersect every now and again - that's just a coincidence. If the US really wanted to observe Tian-dong, it has enough assets to do that without using X-37B.
Tian-dong-1 and the second X-37B both spotted something else in space and went to have a look at it. This is the real story here. 2012 will be the end of us all.
Anyone who has read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Heinlein knows that being able to own space means an unparalleled strategic advantage.
After doing the first fly-around to see if it had any titanium orbital bombardment rods or nuclear missiles strapped onto it, they've since been watching it carefully to see if the empty space station module will transform into some kind of giant gun or fighting robot..or at least unfurl a communist flag or something.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That they're in the same orbits because that's favorable from an engineering / rocket propulsion perspective?
Kind of like how geosynchronous satellites all occupy more or less the same distance from earth?
is when I get interested
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Rival countries spying on each other's technology... what else is new? According to TFA the X37-B launched before Tiangong, and later shifted its orbit to track the Chinese station. If true, that would be an impressive trick.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Not going to get into too many details, but if you look at the orbits of the objects, they are not in the correct positions for OTV to get a good look at Tiangong. Why not get into details? Because the folks that understand this already know. And the people that don't understand what an RAAN is will probably just continue to believe these stories.
Actually, they are probably both in viable orbits to keep an eye on Iran / Afghanistan. Iran doesnt have the range on their ballistic missiles to hit the US yet, but they can sure hit china easy enough.
For a plethora of socioeconomic reasons.
Keep in mind that China's recently launched aircraft carrier was ostensibly purchased from the Ukraine to be a "floating casino" in Macau. For an entertaining recap of how they got the ship, see the wikipedia article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_aircraft_carrier_Varyag
While public deception is certainly not unique to China, I think most people would agree that their military aspirations are more opaque than most people think.
Best,
This is detente in action. When China shot and destroyed their weather satellite FY-1C, they knew the debris from it would threaten the International Space Station. The FY-1C was in an orbit which left the debris at a hazardous altitude, threatening the US/Russian station.
If the US is following the Chinese station using X37-B, this may be to observe it. On the other hand, it may be a demonstration that we could destroy their station with a precision strike, thus they should not expend any more satellites in an attempt to shotgun our station.
This is an episode in our cold war with China.
The operative word here is "ground", and even that is not much use without a suitable energy source. In Heinlein's book, the earth is pummeled by "cargo" loads of moon rocks launched from a giant rail-gun on the moon. There would be little advantage in "pre-launching" a space station full of ordnance over the more traditional method of using ICBMs for delivery. Unlike an airplane, you can't just "drop" a bomb from a space station.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
...large solar sail in shape of ornamental fan shortly.
I'm not sure why this keeps getting posted around the internet as spying on China... the article makes it pretty clear that:
a) There's plenty of other ways to spy on China's station.
b) The space station was launched well after the X-37B.
c) The orbit and inclination of the X-37B implies that it is testing sensors over the Middle-East.
d) Is it really that important to have a dedicated satellite to spy on China's space station? It's not even manned right now.
One would think ground based telescopes would be just as good and more stealthy. These things are designed to look at distant stars. One would think they could get excellent resolution on a satellite.
Maybe I'm wrong... I won't claim to be an expert. It just seems we have a lot of hardware pointed skyward and collectively it should be able to keep tabs on anything in low earth orbit.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It's NASA's creative workaround for R&D budget cuts.
driving slowly with its turn signal blinking
Unlike an airplane, you can't just "drop" a bomb from a space station.
Actually, you can, though getting accuracy would be harder. From LEO, high surface-area/mass objects can deorbit within a couple orbits or so, so you can put a "parachute" (probably a mylar balloon) on your rods-from-god, then cut it loose when they're on the right trajectory.
And a big benefit of on-orbit munitions is that they may have a good chance of surviving a first strike in a nuclear war, thus preserving MAD even in the face of (hypothetical) MAD-busting ICBM-specific interception tech. This is why they were a big topic back in the cold war era. Without that need, it's true they're much less useful.
Spy vs. Spy. Cool. ;-)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
or any other "axis of evil" power for that matter can do in the wake of american foreign policy and dominionism is to be peaceful. if iran's nuclear program never moves beyond nuclear fuel for reactors, and chinas space aspirations remain seated in the exploration of the cosmos, then america is left without a boogeyman for the immediate future.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Actually, if you could gain even one second over your enemy there would be a reason. If it's in LEO then one of those things loaded up with tungsten rods would have a devastating conventional attack with just a slight push in the right direction. Kinetic energy weapons would work like that. Nukes, I don't see why they would really do that and either way it's not something that has to be manned.
I would also say that bringing foreign countries satellites back for inspection was why Nixon went with the shuttle which could never go high enough to fulfill that mission but now the Air Force has a relatively cheap space plane that could do that and bring it back. On a coolness scale from 1 to 10 it's an 11.
"Is it spying on Tiangong-1? I really don't think so. [Emphasis mine.] I think the fact that their orbits intersect every now and again - that's just a co-incidence. If the US really wanted to observe Tiangong, it has enough assets to do that without using X-37B," he added. "
Jeez, would it hurt the submitter too much to actually read to the END OF THE FREAKING ARTICLE? Headline-hunting much?
Yes, god forbid the Chinese do anything like launch military spy satellites that monitor everything and everyone in the world ... like the United States already has.
I agree with what you say somewhat but one nuclear space weapon would take the whole thing out. So it doesn't seem like a threat to us, but hey the Chinese need to get ready to police the world now that we no longer can due to corporate welfare. Let them waste some time and money doing that AFAIC.
There would be little advantage in "pre-launching" a space station full of ordnance over the more traditional method of using ICBMs for delivery. Unlike an airplane, you can't just "drop" a bomb from a space station.
Actually you can, for sufficiently large definitions of "space station." A SLICBM does sessionally that - launches a bus into orbit containing some bombs - that it then aligns with its target and drops one. if you had some in relatively stable long term orbits you could launch a strike with very little warning - is it a meteor or is it a bomb. The down side is it could lead to an accidental counter-strike if someone thought a meteor was a bomb re-entering. IFIRC, the idea of orbiting bombs was bandied about until the world decided not to go dow that route.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You shouldn't use a title like that when you have zero proof. You are making up stuff. You sound like the mass media.
I agree with what you say somewhat but one nuclear space weapon would take the whole thing out. So it doesn't seem like a threat to us, but hey the Chinese need to get ready to police the world now that we no longer can due to corporate welfare. Let them waste some time and money doing that AFAIC.
If you think the Chinese mentality is to Police the world, then I'm afraid you are in for a rude awakening.
Conquer (militarily, culturally, monetarily), is more in line with the predominant cultural beliefs than police.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
In that book they drop rocks from the Moon to the Earth.
1. Turn the chemical energy in rocket fuel into kinetic energy using rocket engines.
2. Turn kinetic engine into gravitation potential energy by orbiting.
3. Turn gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy by deorbiting and falling.
4. Turn kinetic energy into heat et. al. by colliding with target.
That's pretty inefficient. It's the equivalent of shooting a bullet by aiming upwards and getting the bullet to fall on your target. You can just skip steps 2 and 3. There is some advantage to be gained if you decrease the delay between deciding to hit something and actually hitting it. But the costs are enormous and that's not at all related to the "strategic advantage" in the cited book.
Conquer (militarily, culturally, monetarily), is more in line with the predominant cultural beliefs than police.
Umm, isn't that exactly what the USA has done since WW2? The cultural and economic conquest of the world by the US is pretty obvious. Militarily is only slightly less obvious when one observes the plethora of American military bases around the world and the 11? floating armadas which are incredibly powerful mobile military bases.
Besides, if you can police something, doesn't that sort of imply that you've already conquered it?
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
By the same argument you could say that all the geosynchronous satellites are running in tandem with each other, so they must be spying on each other. While it is possible, I'd say a more likely reason is that whatever the two of them are doing up there, they are observing the same areas around the world.
How long until spacewar debris makes the margin for error in passing through LEO too risky?
Presumeably they calculate launches to avoid debris ahead of time. How tricky are those calcs now? How tricky do they have to get for the Earth to be locked in a halo of debris?
Spaceflight might only be practical for less than 100 years. The next civilization, if one arises, will probably have little knowledge of ours so the lessons can't be passed on...
Regardless, MAD makes this all kind of pointless. Shooting moonrocks at someone does little to prevent them from launching their ICBMs at you.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Conquer (militarily, culturally, monetarily), is more in line with the predominant cultural beliefs than police.
Military: U.S. military bases span the globe.
Culture: McDonald's, KFC, blue jeans and Hollywood are everywhere.
Money: International transactions and currency reserves are largely held in U.S. dollars.
Just food for thought.
Just what did you think they wanted a space plane for ??? After all, they're officially not supposed to have weapons up there.
The Chinese spacecraft is spying on the US spacecraft? China would never spy on us!
From LEO, high surface-area/mass objects can deorbit within a couple orbits or so
A couple of orbits or so along a predictable trajectory is a lot easier to shoot down than a low-altitude cruise missile. It might make sense to put something like a massive laser in space, but getting it into the right orbit for a strike and providing it with enough power to punch through the atmosphere and do more than give people on the ground a mild sunburn would be nontrivial.
And a big benefit of on-orbit munitions is that they may have a good chance of surviving a first strike in a nuclear war
Not really. Both the USA and China have tested ground-to-space missiles for shooting down satellites and laser systems that can disable or destroy satellites from the ground. Creating an orbital weapons platform that can survive missile and laser strikes from the ground would be a massive engineering challenge. In any modern nuclear first strike scenario, these things would be the first to be launched, because you want to destroy the enemy's ability to track your launches.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
is it a meteor or is it a bomb. The down side is it could lead to an accidental counter-strike if someone thought a meteor was a bomb re-entering
Today's injection of culture into Slashdot: Icarus Allsorts, by Roger McGough .
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Please stop being paranoid, we would never do that kind of thing.
Also, please tell your scientists to bring their wives in, preferably naked. This video stream needs to be less of a sausage fest.
The advantage of being in space in Heinlein's books comes from the fact that it's hard for people to shoot back. If you're on the Earth's surface, almost anywhere, with modern weapons it's as easy for the enemy to strike at you as it is for you to strike at them. If one side is on the moon and the other side is on Earth, then it's asymmetric because it takes a lot more energy to move a rock from the Earth to the Moon than vice versa (compare the first stage of the Saturn V to the LEM).
Having a moon base doesn't give much of an advantage if your leadership is still on the ground, but if you are China and have the inner party in a self-sustaining lunar colony then you're in a very strong position - the only people who the enemy can easily kill are the ones the leadership doesn't really care about. Of course, a self-sustaining lunar colony is still a very long way away...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Umm, isn't that exactly what the USA has done since WW2?
Well, yeah. That's why we object to China (or anyone else) trying to horn in on our action. No one cares if $they take something from $them. It's only a problem when $they take something from us. Note, this is pretty much true of all nations - US just has more it considers $MINE than most other nations.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
That 'US warplane' isn't spying, it's doing pizza delivery. Domino's. 30 orbits or less, or your pizza's free...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I would also say that bringing foreign countries satellites back for inspection was why Nixon went with the shuttle which could never go high enough to fulfill that mission but now the Air Force has a relatively cheap space plane that could do that and bring it back. On a coolness scale from 1 to 10 it's an 11.
A wet dream that won't achieve more than soiled pants.
Even if the satellite/craft won't have a self-destruction charge (soviet satellites were known to have these) grappling and storing anything that isn't prepared for that and will have fuel and RCS engines is just madness. And then the payload capacity of this puny spaceplane isn't enough for more than a microsat even without thinking of what the grappling, storing and securing devices would take up.
Since when does "may be spying" effectively get translated in TFA headline to "definitely *is* spying"? TFA clearly says it's just speculation that it's spying.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I think people have yet to realize that the US is at a new cold war; this time with the Chinese. Secret partners (sometimes playing both sides) include Pakistan, India and Russia, to name a few. Iraq and Iran are nothing more than proxy wars between the two. Somalia and Mogadishu will probably be next. Latin America could be battle grounds for it too.
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
That's not a coincidence. That's how orbital mechanics work. Every orbit intersects every other orbit at exactly two points. Imagine the orbital plane as an elliptical disk. One of it's foci will coincide with the earth's center. An intersection of two planes containing two orbits is a line. This line will go through the two intersections between the orbits, at which both orbiting objects will pass through the same point in the sky. The objects will not collide as long as they pass through it at different time or altitude.
You want to be conquered by USA, China, Russia, or (pick Islamist State)??
Aren't USA bases around the world at places that have agreed and want them?
Why not China bases around world? You plick....
Well it is a test plane. The next one will be larger. I think the Chinese are watching us since we launched first. We could just use this thing to put a bomb on every potential enemy satellite. It's currently large enough for that, but who cares if you bring all of it back. This thing could easily have a saw in the back. The next one will open from the front an swallow. It will be just like it disappeared. Maybe it has lasers?
Theoretically, all you need is towing capacity, not return-to-ground, on the satellite interceptor: tow the satellite to the ISS, where you have Dextre and EVA capability from the station airlocks so you can sabotage the engines, jettison the fuel, and hope there are no self-destruct charges (or disarm them if you somehow managed to not set them off already). From there, the important parts (comms systems and control modules that might have encryption?) can be stripped out and shipped down on the next Soyuz, listed on the manifest as "defective spares for inspection and analysis" or some-such, while the rest gets sent gently, quietly, even in a way tenderly into the atmosphere.
This, of course, requires the cooperation of all the astronauts/cosmonauts/[x]nauts on board the ISS and any nations participating in keeping the thing in orbit, so it would only be useful for snagging a satellite that belonged to a nation whose launch efforts no one else appreciated and yet whose military/economic capabilities no one else fears. That means the scenario will never happen.
Umm, isn't that exactly what the USA has done since WW2?
Funny you should ask. "No" would be the correct answer to that question.
But I'll check with our colonies in what used to be Germany and Japan, just to be sure. Our viceroy in South Korea or our Puppet Leaders in eastern Europe may also have some comments, of course. Oh, righ, none of that's actually the case.
You're confusing "the USA" with "everyone who didn't want to live under totalitarian regimes."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
A rocket scientist, yet you can't tell its from it's. What is it about this tiny symbol that trips up even the smartest people? IT IS simple, IT'S MEANS IT IS.
Unlike an airplane, you can't just "drop" a bomb from a space station.
Duh, you blow up planets with your giant freaking laser beam from you airquote Death... Star... airquote.
I8-D
That we actually got to know about this, I tought that spying is super-secret. Yet they are play Star Wars at plain sight.
You can throw one tho. A little push goes a long ways in space ;)
One mission that is can be done with a sub is to bounce some neutrons off of a surface ship and measure the back scatter radiation. Apparently this can be used to get an idea of if/how much fissionable material may be on board the surface ship without the whole international incident mess of boarding a foreign flagged ship at sea (I'm guessing/assuming/hoping that the US is doing this with any traffic between NK and Iran.).
It might be a useful "science experiment" to bounce some neutrons off of the Chinese space station just to check of they might be violating all sorts of agreements by stationing a nuke or two in space.
The problem is, it costs on the order of $5k-$10k to put a single kg of payload into LEO. A Mk82 500 lb bomb costs $270 and delivers 440 MJ of energy. To get that much energy out of a similar-cost tungsten rod weighing 50 grams, it would have to be moving at 132 km/sec, nearly 20x faster than LEO velocity. If you want to destroy something on the ground, it's several orders of magnitude cheaper to do it with a conventional ground- or air-based attack than with a space-based weapon.
Theoretically, all you need is towing capacity, not return-to-ground, on the satellite interceptor: tow the satellite to the ISS
You mean, to US modules left hanging after everyone else disconnected them?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
>Just food for thought.
LOL good one.
captcha: mandarin
If it's hard for people to shoot back, it's hard for people to put all that (imaginary) technology on the Moon in the first place. Ain't gonna happen, ever. See how easy it is to completely destroy Space Nuttery with its own fallacies?
If it's hard for people to shoot arrows back at people who have the high ground at the top of a hill, it's hard for people to get their bows to the top of the hill in the first place. Ain't gonna happen, ever. See how easy it is to completely mock the Space Nuttery troll(s) with their own fallicies?
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that the moon would be an impregnable fortress the way Heinlein described it (actually, it wasn't really all that impregnable in the book). Realistically, with modern technology, a magnetic mass driver on the moon would be easy to locate and target and easy to destroy with missiles from earth or high orbit regardless of ground defense lasers (if you can't land a nuke without it being shot down by laser, land a solid lump of metal at very high velocity). The book at least threw in a lot of political factors and didn't rely on the idea that the moon would be an impregnable fortress.
I'm not really arguing the military plausibility of anything Heinlein wrote in that book. I'm arguing that the argument you're using is nonsensical. Standard military practice forever has been to occupy defensible locations. They're considered defensible locations because, once you occupy them, it's hard for the enemy to hurt the occupiers and easy for the occupiers to hurt the enemy. Sometimes the occupiers get to be the occupiers by fighting extremely hard battles, but most of the time they do it by getting there first, or at least being the first to build up defenses. So from a military perspective, occupying difficult terrain is a force multiplier. It may only be a little harder to climb up a hill than to cross flat terrain, but with fortified enemies at the top shooting at you, it's a lot harder. So, although it is hard to get people and supplies to the moon, there's just no comparison to how difficult it would be in the middle of a shooting war.
You can only shoot down satalites that you have a line of sight on quickly. And really only ones right above you.
If you want to knock out satalites from the other site of the globe you need to get something into orbit which will take time. More than enough time to repond.
If you think the Chinese mentality is to Police the world, then I'm afraid you are in for a rude awakening.
Conquer (militarily, culturally, monetarily), is more in line with the predominant cultural beliefs than police.
And I thought Chinese mentality/culture was to build high walls around your country and hope nobody gets in and disturbs you.
Fandroids hate facts.
Should read
That's what happens when you let the terrorists scare you into giving up your rights and letting the war-drum beaters take over the country.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Have I said too much?
Yes
That's you in the corner
That's you in the spotlight
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Spy everything, everywhere and everyone (Spy EEE).
Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)
Well it would probably only be for very deep bunkers. OK put one higher up and give it a push. The moon would be the perfect place for something like this. A Mk82 with a laser JDAM kit would even be cheaper probably. Isn't China planning to go to the moon? Also, if we fought a worthy opponent GPS may not help us.
We really haven't had anyone capable of beating us in an all out war for over 60 years now even though we lost a few for political reasons, it wasn't because our military capability but more to do with rules of engagement. Now a country like China might could blind our GPS but that or the internet doesn't affect those Trident missiles. They use inertial guidance plus take star shots to get more accuracy than you might think. I heard it was within maybe 1000 meters but of course that is still top secret and with a 10 megaton device that's really close enough.
What GPS is for, is for unequal opponents to eliminate so much collateral damage or danger to the pilot and plane which costs more than any bomb it carries. If it has to go 20x faster, the rods of god can be made to go faster. The question is whether it would do any real penetration. I think we need to do some testing to find out. Maybe see if we can blow a guy off a camel from space without killing the camel as they seem to be worth more than people (sarcasm).....