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US 'Space Warplane' Spying On Chinese Spacelab

Posted by Soulskill on from the it-is-now-the-future dept.

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.

7 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Ho-hum... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:Ho-hum... by Hadlock · · Score: 5, Informative

      The more impressive trick is that it's way, way past it's total mission time, and was scheduled to come down around thanksgiving. It's now almost 2 months past it's original planned mission. And yeah, it did change it's orbit, back in May or so. Pretty much everyone wants to know what's going on in North Korea and Iran, and apparently you can photograph both from the orbit that Tiandong is in.
       
      More info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 skip down to the operational history part.

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  2. Nobody has looked at the orbits very well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Nobody has looked at the orbits very well by Sez+Zero · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Exactly. TFA puts it thusly:

      "The X-37B is in a much lower inclination which means it can only see a very narrow band of latitudes, and the only thing that's of real interest in that band is the Middle East and Afghanistan.

      There's nothing the US would want to look at in the Middle East, right? If it catches side glances at a Chinese space station, that's just gravy.

      The article does end on a winner:

      Wilder theories have also reared their heads, such as that both Tiangong-1 and the second X-37B spotted "something else" in space and went to have a look at it - but that seems a little bit like wishful thinking from ET-loving dreamers.

      Yup, that's totally it. I can see Michael Bay's next screenplay forming...

  3. Re:Space Warplane? by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is in the eyes of the Iranian media. Wait, the summary didn't mention that that was were that term was taken from? Huh, funny. Almost like the summary is trying to be sensationalist or something. It also didn't mention the X-37B was in that exact orbit before the Chinese launched their laboratory? And that they are not in "tandem", they only get close every 170 orbits? Yeah, the X-37B is definitely still there to spy on the Chinese. Only possible explanation.

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  4. Well, NO, from TFA, even by Cragen · · Score: 5, Informative
    In the article, for pete's sake, the "expert to be quoted today", "Brian Weedon, a technical adviser to the Secure World Foundation and former orbital analyst with the USAF, " , actually IN THE FSCKING ARTICLE says, ""The X-37B is in a much lower inclination which means it can only see a very narrow band of latitudes, and the only thing that's of real interest in that band is the Middle East and Afghanistan.

    "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?

  5. Re:Makes sense... space is the ultimate high groun by ScentCone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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."

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