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After a Year In Orbit, US Air Force's X37-B Will Conclude Its Secret Mission
SomePgmr writes "The U.S Air Force's highly secret unmanned space plane will land in June — ending a year-long mission in orbit. The experimental Boeing X37-B has been circling Earth at 17,000 miles per hour and was due to land in California in December. It is now expected to land in mid to late June. And still, no one knows what the space drone has been doing up there all this time."
...I'm guessing most here will believe that its mission was one of unmitigated evil.
It's probably designed to shred the Constitution — from space!
It's gonna be quite a hot batch!
If this secret spy drone is rocking, don't come a knocking...
Or maybe the 2000km high club
Not even the people who launched it?
Someone probably knows, I'd bet several people. Just not yet us.
And mozilla had Gordon Shumway all along.
... that the people who put it up there know what its doing.
So I wouldn't say 'no one' knows.
Considering the huge number of satellites and space debris, I'm going to say that it was just stuck in traffic all year. Space rush hour really sucks!
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
17,000 miles per hour, I guess that's something like 30,000 km/h? That seems pretty fast to me. How much fuel did that consume, and how did they provide it with fuel for a whole year?
It's leaving one HELL of a chem-trail.
What else could it be? Obviously the tech is alien in nature and they needed to commune with the high overlords.
or
the could be part of an missile intercept program to take down ICMB's...
or
they just wanted to get free Pay Per View.
How secret can it be if we know it happened? What we really have to worry/consider are the things that we never even know happen, not just "don't know their purpose."
If the general community know that this 'secret' spaceplane was up there doing stuff, then you can guarantee that it wasn't doing anything sensitive, though possibly classified. When they do really important and secret things, you can guarantee that we never even know it happened at all.
From the Article......
"At launch, the space plane was accompanied by staff in biohazard suits, leading to speculation that there were radioactive components on board. "
Why cant journalists that actually have an education in science cover science subjects?
Really? a BIOHAZARD suit for RADIOACTIVE protection?
I, for one, Welcome our new space-plane Overlords.
Funny comment in the article: "At launch, the space plane was accompanied by staff in biohazard suits, leading to speculation that there were radioactive components on board."
I'd wear protective suits if it is fueled with hypergolic propellant since it's extremely toxic, so the comment about radioactive components is just bs IMHO.
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
WWwwhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Well obviously it had to care for the baby drone it birthed...
I talked to someone who saw the Dream Chaser space plane undergoing air tests north of Boulder. Its one of four private manned vehicles in first-round development funded by NASA. I hear its supposed to be drop-tested from SpaceShipTwo later this year.
Not even the air force, or DARPA, or the NSA.
Government Spokesperson:
"It just kinda launched itself and seemed to be having a good time up there so we let it be."
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
I thought the big thing about this vehicle was that it could go up and down more cheaply than traditional means. If its going to be left up there for a year, doesn't that defeat the object ? Perhaps its not operational yet, and this was just to prove that the production versions can operate for a long time.
Lest we forget http://www.stolly.org.uk/ETO
It didn't arrive back on Earth the day before it left. Pwned again by relativity, USAF!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Nobody knows it took off on a mission of peace using experimental propulsion technology to get to the Galactic High Court to beg for mercy, in order to fend off the imminent destruction of your planet Earth...
Spying on the Spanish. No inquisition for you!
NEXT!
Going to space is an illuminating experience, like others, X37-B just didn't want to return to the mundane world.
Either that, or the original flightplan was for a three hour cruise.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That would be creepy to hear.
Also, if it really had launched its self I think we all know it would be shot down ASAP.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Setting a new government verified standard for "on-time" arrivals. After this benchmark; was due to land in California in December. It is now expected to land in mid to late June -- how can anyone complain about being a few hours late!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The US military has had an open goal of expanding its capabilities to kill targets selectively with as little delay as possible. All the gadgetry to achieve real-time eyes-on intelligence on a potential target (like the late UBL) can be worthless if it takes an hour or more to mobilize a strike against it and the target slips away. Having a potential weapons platform already up in the air 24/7 for a year at a time can cut the response time significantly. And if you are hindered by the fixed orbit, like spy satellites, just launch more space planes...
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Do not taunt happy fun shuttle.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
What was the shuttle doing?
[it] has been circling Earth at 17,000 miles per hour [...]
In fact it's clear it enjoyed circling Earth so much that it delayed its return:
[it] was due to land in California in December. It is now expected to land in mid to late June.
Mystery solved.
Oh damn, I gave it away.
I am notg looking forward to that next hunting trip with Dick!
"no one knows" is not accurate. A small number of people do indeed know. And are keeping it secret from the people who pay for it.
It's looking for cylons. We haven't heard from them in so long that the military is growing restless. They want to know if the cylons are preparing a strike.
Hey. At least it could come back when it got bored. Not stuck up there like Spirit.
Have gnu, will travel.
Could we get a more serious source for this? After all the stuff that comes out of the Daily Mail I don't take them seriously.
The nefarious purpose of this drone flight?
Once being placed into orbit like any traditional satellite, and making small course adjustments like any traditional satellite, and performing any number of now-routine tasks performed by satellites, and after staying up in orbit for a long time like any other satellite, it engaged in one crucially oppressive, sovereignty-crushing task:
It landed back on the surface of the Earth!!!
The pictures of you picking your nose in the backyard last summer is just gravy.
q: why shouldn't you put body text in the subject?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Since Apple is making a big deal about dropping Google Maps for OpenStreetMap and having 3D display, but no street view, I think we really know what surveillance this drone was doing.
After all, the timing of the mission completion is pretty suspect. Unable to obtain his thermonuclear option for Android, clearly Jobs coordinated with the Air Force to "nuke it from space, it's the only way to be sure."
1 year in orbit, 1 year to mars. Seems like a trial of whether the thing can stay sealed up and functional that long.
Best laugh I've had all day. Thanks!
Spying. Duh.
if the track record of drones is to be validated on any level, and its future potential understood, we must look at the applications pursued thus far. Sure, Anwar al-Awlaki for example was blown up by a drone flying high in the skies above him. But just think about how much more we would win the war on terror if the next american citizen to speak freely against his country were blown up...from space. Clearly the mission served only one purpose: to stop Neil DeGrasse Tyson from making any more disparaging remarks about the state of NASA budget cuts.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Just that no-one could remember where they stored the recall instructions. Or who was supposed to write them initially...
The simplest explination is that the team that launched the X37-B has retired, and did not leave a contact phone number that's still connected. Now the U.S. has effectively an experiment in space that it does not know how to terminate, and who's purpose no one in the DOD really cares about. What will happen in the next couple years is that the experiment will fall into the ocean. It's firey dimise will be on CNN. A couple of weeks later, there will be an update to Wikipedia about the event. And everyone will go about their business as usual
:)
oh snap! stevie d.
Been waiting for the aliens to hatch inside the poor astronauts (sent to this first Close Encounter on a purportedly unmanned mission under the pretense of having to repair some secret satellite), so they'll be ripe&ready for world domination at landing? =;-o
Or wait a minute, T.H.E.Y. said we mustn't ever tell anyone about that, or else... oops, posted already, on /. of all places +++NO CARRIER
One thing that has been desirable has been to keep surveillance drones in flight for as long as possible. The longest shuttle mission was 17 days and 15 hours. This drone has been up there for a year before coming down.
Yeah, because it was essentially a satellite in orbit around the earth. We already have spy satellites, and have had them for a lot longer than we have had drones.
The reason why we're using a lot of drones now, despite already having satellites, is because the drones can maintain a lengthy continuous presence over a specific location, rather than passing over that location at regular intervals in an orbit which can be discovered and then worked around. In terms of amount of time continuously observing an area of interest, this space plane has vastly lower numbers than any UAV -- just like all spy satellites.
If you are picturing this being used for surveillance, then what they showed is not a drone with an extremely long loiter time. It's a satellite with an extremely short orbital life span.
I think they're aiming to replace spy satellites with these drones and this was a test to see if a drone can stay up in space for a long duration and still arrive back on ground intact for repairs or to upgrade its system.
If the military has upgraded equipment they want to put in a spy satellite, they just launch a new one. They have no need to recover old ones (unlike back in the day when spy satellites used film), so they just let the old one deorbit.
To figure out what the X37 is for, we need to figure out why the military would need it back. Spy satellite doesn't fit the bill at all.
The enemies of Democracy are
It does what all secret military things in orbit do..take lots of pictures of the neighbors. Over a years time it must have snapped thousands of frowny faces of laid off NASA rocket scientists.
Its sad to see soo much $$$ wasted on the spy v spy crap.
I betcha they paid for this with the change from those $ 500.00 toilet seats and $ 200.00 hammers. Oh, and maybe they siphoned some money from those $100 Million dollar F-35's. No wonder the government is always close to broke.
If it has tires or tits, it will give you problems.
I'm pretty sure they have been doing Geosynchronous Orbit with satellites for some time. If you want to talk about loiter time, that is pretty much continuous for however long the satellite is up there.
The problem with satellites, is A) they are a long way up, despite what you may have seen in Hollywood, that means less detail and things like clouds and the like can sometimes get in the way, and B) it is also much more difficult to make changes in position.
The only thing this seems to be able to do that is different is land, which I am not sure why that might be a requirement for that purpose. I mean back in the day before there was the bandwidth for imagery, I believe some satellites actually may have used film, and then did physical drops of the film to be retrieved for analysis, but today, I am not sure what purpose it would serve. Retrofit and re-purpose/reuse perhaps as a cost saving measure. Though I would think the cost of the actual launch would be +95% of the actual cost anyway, so I am not sure what benefit that would really be.
Anyway I agree with your assessment, spy satellite doesn't seem to fit the bill for that regard. Your guess is as good as mine. Though I would expand the premise of why the military would want it back, to the only reason would be what is it physically *bringing* back. Either it brought something up there for some sort of modification or experiment, or it collected something up there (dust, debris, something physical, small satellite...), and is bringing it back for analysis. Could be that they are testing materials or methods, like radiation hardening, or particular designs, etc... and want to inspect the results.
They could be worried about communication interception by enemies, but I would assume they could use some pretty good encryption, and if they can break that, then spy satellites are probably the least of their worries (also physical retrieval I would think would be more risky for interception anyway).
Who knows maybe it is just a proof of concept of some principle or technology, a "there see we can do that now" sort of thing.