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SpaceX Will Launch Secretive X-37B Spaceplane's Next Mission (latimes.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from Los Angeles Times: SpaceX will launch the Air Force's X-37B experimental spaceplane later this year, in the military's latest vote of confidence in the Elon Musk-led space company. This will be the first time SpaceX has launched the uncrewed robotic vehicle. United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., has launched the spaceplane's previous four missions atop one of its Atlas V rockets. The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which is responsible for the X-37B's experimental operations, said it was "very excited" for the fifth flight, which will test how special electronics and heat pipes will fare during a long-duration space mission. The Air Force has two of the spaceplanes, which look like miniature versions of the space shuttle and are known officially as X-37B Orbital Test Vehicles. The first X-37B was launched in 2010.
More like "vote of cutting corners". Aka "you're cheaper, I'm insured, fire it up for all I care".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The USA managed to build and launch an airliner sized crewed reusable spaceplane called the shuttle in the 1970s. I'd love to know whats so cutting edge about the X35 that they're trying to keep this midget version of the shuttle secret. Warp engines? Dilithium crystals? Or just too embarresed to show that space technology has barely advanced in 40 years?
A male Falcon rocket is technically known as a "tercel".
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
So what exactly does it do then?
When they launched the spy satellite, it was the best launch coverage (streamed on youtube) to date, in my opinion. Rockets go up all the time, it is rockets coming back down which is unusual and special. Because of the payload, the coverage of that mission didn't look at stage II at all, so we got better coverage of the booster (stage I) return, including continuous launch-to-landing ground telescope images of the booster, plus continuous video from the booster. I have high hopes that this launch will be similar.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Do the drop the X designation?? Almost a decade if flight, I think it passed the test , and what would its new designator be ?
It appears to be a space shuttle, scaled for squirrels. And it's classified.
So, obviously, it's OFFICIALLY a Secret Squirrel Program. . . .
A male Falcon rocket is technically known as a "tercel".
Aren't all rockets male? Maybe a space plane could be female...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And of course, because you can find everything on the internet...
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
You would need to examine the docking parts
mr Musk should leak all the details of the X37B cuz hes a computer person
Apart from how much it weighs and the details of what orbit it's heading into, I doubt anybody at SpaceX actually knows what the X37B actually does, including Musk. One could speculate I suppose, but I'm sure the USAF is keeping the actual mission details to themselves...
It's a contract launch that says... Here are the launch specifications, weight, center of gravity, size and on pad environmental requirements, here is the orbit we want and when we want it launched. Finally, here is the schedule of payments and the initial check for you to get started...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It doesn't matter what docking parts it has! Stop being a bigot. It should be able to go into the hanger it identifies with.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Trump will leak it to the Russians if he's in office long enough.
I thought we weren't going to talk about the pee tapes here.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Whores generally aren't that expensive, what did you expect?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Mod +1 Funny
I've speculated on all sorts of things in the past. Primarily it's a movable spy satellite system. Both direct observation from the platform and deployment on micro satellites that are much harder to track. The drone can sit up there until it runs out of resources/fuel. It can also adjust it's orbit on demand.
There are militaries the world over that track both commercial and government spy satellites that will save and hide their movement until a times when the satellites no longer have direct line of sight or are in other such blind spots. The X37b can do custom spying on demand. It can also be deployed to pick up telemetry from other satellites and possibly even to jam them.
The Space Craft is not a secret.
It's the cargo.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The shuttle was never used to its full capabilities.
Disagree. The problem with the shuttle was that it's capabilities weren't what they needed to be. Technically it was reusable but so much work and expense went into each refurbishment that they may as well have not bothered. The shuttle was supposed to reduce cost to orbit and it did nothing of the sort. The fact that it was capable of bringing items back from orbit is a minor detail which misses the big picture. The shuttle wasn't economically capable of solving the space junk problem which is really the only common reason to bring most items back from orbit aside from science experiments and astronauts. Once you make getting to orbit economical THEN it is worth worrying about bringing stuff back economically. The shuttle design was simply not capable of doing that economically.
Nothing in the AAP could have safely brought a satellite back from orbit as the shuttle managed on 4 occasions.
I said "along the lines of the AAP", as in something similar. It didn't have to be that program specifically. It's an example of a type of program that would have been more likely to succeed. It's all moot at this point and SpaceX (and some others) are finally making progress on the problems. It's just a shame we wasted so much time and money on the shuttle.
The shuttle could have stayed in orbit for months if it didn't have a crew.
So what? It would still have been outrageously expensive to launch, overly complicated, unreliable (two failures in just over 100 missions), required substantial refurbishment between missions, etc. There simply are better ways to solve the problems the shuttle was supposed to tackle. It was a design by committee that ultimately failed in its primary purpose which was to reduce cost to orbit and allow more rapid launches. This isn't to say it wasn't a capable vehicle but the economics of it were poor and it held us back for several decades.
And I don't see this thing taking a full crew + 22 ton payload anytime soon.
Presumably it wasn't designed to do that so why is that a problem?
What ever happened to his motto "Don't be evil"?
Oh, wait. That was some other guys. He never said that.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
After launch, go to http://www.heavens-above.com/ to see exactly when the X-37B will be overhead and visible.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
X37-B does have cross-range capability, but not enough to evade people tracking it from the ground. http://www.heavens-above.com/ will show its location and orbit shortly after launch.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
So what exactly does it do then?
Test how special electronics and heat pipes will fare during a long-duration space mission.
There, the secret is out. Might as well just cancel the whole project.
Or ... they wouldn't lie to us, would they?
Have gnu, will travel.
Given the amount of the sky you can cover with a digital camera and a program that can do differential comparisons, unless you have a fairly large rocket stage it's going to be pretty hard to hide in space, even from the armature back yard guys. Even then, you are not going to hide for very long. My guess is that the goal isn't stealth anyway.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Shuttle was the omnitool that could do everything.
It could do a lot but it could not do anything cheaply. It was too complicated, too expensive, too unreliable, and unfocused. We got ahead of ourselves with the shuttle and turned a reasonable idea (reusable flight vehicle) into a jobs program which needlessly cost 14 astronauts their lives and held our space program back for three decades.