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Secret U.S. Space Plane Lands With A Boom In Florida
The Air Force's secret X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle landed at NASA 's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida on Sunday, setting off a sonic boom that surprised residents.
The Air Force's experimental X-37B space plane announced the end of its nearly two-year mission by creating a sonic boom on Sunday that surprised residents along Florida's Space Coast. Officials have provided only vague details about the unmanned craft's more than 700-day mission.
"Not much is known about the 30-foot-long robotic spacecraft or what it took to space," as member station WMFE reports.
The X-37B is an "orbital test vehicle" that looks like a miniature space shuttle — it even used the old shuttle runway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center when it landed Sunday. To reach orbit, it rides on an Atlas V rocket.
This was the fourth mission for the reusable vehicle, and the first time it has landed in Florida. Earlier trips have ended at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Sunday's landing sparked a flurry of tweets and questions about the sonic boom, with The Orlando Sentinel reporting that before the landing, officials had refused to confirm rumors of a pending return to Florida. The Air Force announced the landing in a tweet — after it had occurred. By then, windows had been rattled and residents had been startled.
The space plane has been the object of frequent speculation about its potential military uses, particularly in either surveillance or some type of combat application, as NPR's Scott Neuman reported in a roundup of theories about the craft in 2014.
The Air Force says that the program includes the testing of many technologies, from guidance and control (Sunday's landing was autonomous) to thermal protection and advanced propulsion systems. The craft is powered by gallium arsenide solar cells with lithium-ion batteries.
As WMFE's Brendan Byrne writes:
"The space plane's development began in 1999. NASA wanted to use the vehicle to repair satellites in orbit. When that proved to be too costly, the Department of Defense picked up the project as a part of its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In 2006, the Air Force announced it would develop what is now the X-37B, and launched the experimental space plane for the first time in 2010."
The craft is managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which describes its mission as developing "combat support and weapon systems by leveraging defense-wide technology development efforts and existing operational capabilities."
The Air Force's public information about the craft focuses on its role in researching reusable space vehicles and establishing a "space test platform for the United States Air Force."
Military space programs "are as big as NASA," astrophysicist and astronomer Jonathan McDowell told NPR's Here and Now in 2015, when the X-37B left for its most recent mission.
At the time, McDowell said there are around 20 to 25 "full-fledged spy satellites or other really secret vehicles" that orbit Earth.
The concept of militarizing space is one that's still developing, McDowell said, noting the distinction between the use of satellites solely to support on-ground operations and their use to snoop on, and even interfere with, other satellites.
Civilian satellite spotters are able to track the more than 5-ton X-37B as it orbits Earth. Fueling theories that it aids surveillance programs, trackers found that at least one earlier mission followed an orbit that took it over countries that included Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...-u-s-space-plane-lands-with-a-boom-in-florida
Air Force space plane lands after secret mission
Technicians in hazmat suits "safe" the Air Force X-37B space plane after an unannounced landing at the Kennedy Space Center early Sunday to close out a clandestine 718-day mission. NASA's iconic Vehicle Assembly Building looms in the background.
An unpiloted military space plane, launched by an Atlas 5 rocket in May 2015, glided to an unannounced landing on the long shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, closing out a 718-day mission. It was the first Florida landing of a returning spacecraft since Atlantis flew home in the program's final mission in 2011.
Sonic booms rumbled across central Florida around 8 a.m. and a few minutes later, the Air Force tweeted that the Boeing-built X-37B space plane -- a compact, delta-wing craft equipped with a payload bay, a solar power boom and a sophisticated computer control systems -- had returned from orbit and landed safely.
"Today marks an incredibly exciting day for the 45th Space Wing as we continue to break barriers," Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, 45th Space Wing commander, said in a statement. "Our team has been preparing for this event for several years, and I am extremely proud to see our hard work and dedication culminate in today's safe and successful landing."
It was the fourth clandestine flight of the X-37B, the longest in the program and the first to end in Florida, where Boeing has taken over two former shuttle processing hangars that have been modified to handle the secret spycraft. The first three missions ended with landings at Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles.
Total time in space by both vehicles across four flights now stands at 2,085 days.
"This mission once again set an on-orbit endurance record and marks the vehicle's first landing in the state of Florida," Lt. Col. Ron Fehlen, X-37B program manager, said in the Air Force statement. "We are incredibly pleased with the performance of the space vehicle and are excited about the data gathered to support the scientific and space communities."
The program's fifth launch is expected later this year.
Two X-37Bs, also known as OTVs, or orbital test vehicles, are known to exist. OTV-1 flew the program's first and third missions while OTV-2, flew the second and fourth, which began with launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on May 20, 2015.
A nose-on view of the X-37B, one of two autonomous military spaceplanes used for classified missions in low-Earth orbit.
U.S. AIR FORCE
The spacecraft are believed to fly as orbital test beds for advanced technology sensors and other systems but the program is classified, and the Air Force provides almost no details on the nature of the space plane's missions, what might have been accomplished or when the reusable craft might fly again.
But before OTV-2 took off on its just-ended flight, the Air Force acknowledged two experiments: a NASA materials science project and one to test an Aerojet Rocketdyne Hall-effect thruster, which generates low but steady thrust by accelerating electrically charged xenon ions. The thrusters are used aboard Advanced Extremely-High Frequency military communications satellites.
But in general, the X-37 program is conducted in near total secrecy.
Joan Johnson-Freese, a space policy analyst at the Naval War College, said before the most recent launching that the X-37B appears to be what the Air Force claims, a technology demonstrator and testbed. But she said the secrecy surrounding the program likely will continue fueling interest among potential adversaries.
"What's interesting to me is it's being done in such an opaque manner," she said. "If the Chinese were doing this, oh my God, there would be congressional hearings on a daily basis and programs being ginned up to respond to it. It has capabilities that other countries aren't sure about, and so they're going to be very nervous about them. If it's a highly maneuverable space vehicle, that has some pretty significant implications."
Play VIDEO
SpaceX launch a major test for its re-usable technology
The original idea for a small unmanned orbiter was developed by NASA and built by Boeing's Phantom Works division. But the program was turned over to the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, in 2004.
Two years later, the Air Force took over. The first X-37B took off on the program's initial orbital test flight April 22, 2010. The spacecraft spent nearly 225 days in orbit before gliding to a computer-controlled touchdown at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
A second X-37B, the same one that landed Sunday, was launched on March 5, 2011. It spent 469 days in space, landing June 16, 2012, at Vandenberg. The third flight, the second for the original OTV-1, took off on Dec. 11, 2012 and landed in California on Oct. 17, 2014, after logging nearly 675 days aloft.
The unmanned orbiters are based on the same lifting body design used for the space shuttle and they fly a similar re-entry trajectory.
But the X-37B features more lightweight composite materials, improved wing insulation and tougher heat-shield tiles that "are significantly more durable than the first generation tiles used by the space shuttle," according to a Boeing website description. "All avionics on the X-37B are designed to automate all de-orbit and landing functions."
The X-37B is equipped with a scaled-down 4-foot-by-7-foot payload bay. But unlike the space shuttle, which relied on fuel cells for electrical power, the Air Force spaceplane is equipped with a deployable solar array that permits it to remain in orbit for long-duration missions.
But exactly what the X-37B does in orbit remains a mystery.
The Air Force's experimental X-37B space plane announced the end of its nearly two-year mission by creating a sonic boom on Sunday that surprised residents along Florida's Space Coast. Officials have provided only vague details about the unmanned craft's more than 700-day mission.
"Not much is known about the 30-foot-long robotic spacecraft or what it took to space," as member station WMFE reports.
The X-37B is an "orbital test vehicle" that looks like a miniature space shuttle — it even used the old shuttle runway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center when it landed Sunday. To reach orbit, it rides on an Atlas V rocket.
This was the fourth mission for the reusable vehicle, and the first time it has landed in Florida. Earlier trips have ended at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Sunday's landing sparked a flurry of tweets and questions about the sonic boom, with The Orlando Sentinel reporting that before the landing, officials had refused to confirm rumors of a pending return to Florida. The Air Force announced the landing in a tweet — after it had occurred. By then, windows had been rattled and residents had been startled.
The space plane has been the object of frequent speculation about its potential military uses, particularly in either surveillance or some type of combat application, as NPR's Scott Neuman reported in a roundup of theories about the craft in 2014.
The Air Force says that the program includes the testing of many technologies, from guidance and control (Sunday's landing was autonomous) to thermal protection and advanced propulsion systems. The craft is powered by gallium arsenide solar cells with lithium-ion batteries.
As WMFE's Brendan Byrne writes:
"The space plane's development began in 1999. NASA wanted to use the vehicle to repair satellites in orbit. When that proved to be too costly, the Department of Defense picked up the project as a part of its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In 2006, the Air Force announced it would develop what is now the X-37B, and launched the experimental space plane for the first time in 2010."
The craft is managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which describes its mission as developing "combat support and weapon systems by leveraging defense-wide technology development efforts and existing operational capabilities."
The Air Force's public information about the craft focuses on its role in researching reusable space vehicles and establishing a "space test platform for the United States Air Force."
Military space programs "are as big as NASA," astrophysicist and astronomer Jonathan McDowell told NPR's Here and Now in 2015, when the X-37B left for its most recent mission.
At the time, McDowell said there are around 20 to 25 "full-fledged spy satellites or other really secret vehicles" that orbit Earth.
The concept of militarizing space is one that's still developing, McDowell said, noting the distinction between the use of satellites solely to support on-ground operations and their use to snoop on, and even interfere with, other satellites.
Civilian satellite spotters are able to track the more than 5-ton X-37B as it orbits Earth. Fueling theories that it aids surveillance programs, trackers found that at least one earlier mission followed an orbit that took it over countries that included Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...-u-s-space-plane-lands-with-a-boom-in-florida
Air Force space plane lands after secret mission
Technicians in hazmat suits "safe" the Air Force X-37B space plane after an unannounced landing at the Kennedy Space Center early Sunday to close out a clandestine 718-day mission. NASA's iconic Vehicle Assembly Building looms in the background.
An unpiloted military space plane, launched by an Atlas 5 rocket in May 2015, glided to an unannounced landing on the long shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, closing out a 718-day mission. It was the first Florida landing of a returning spacecraft since Atlantis flew home in the program's final mission in 2011.
Sonic booms rumbled across central Florida around 8 a.m. and a few minutes later, the Air Force tweeted that the Boeing-built X-37B space plane -- a compact, delta-wing craft equipped with a payload bay, a solar power boom and a sophisticated computer control systems -- had returned from orbit and landed safely.
"Today marks an incredibly exciting day for the 45th Space Wing as we continue to break barriers," Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, 45th Space Wing commander, said in a statement. "Our team has been preparing for this event for several years, and I am extremely proud to see our hard work and dedication culminate in today's safe and successful landing."
It was the fourth clandestine flight of the X-37B, the longest in the program and the first to end in Florida, where Boeing has taken over two former shuttle processing hangars that have been modified to handle the secret spycraft. The first three missions ended with landings at Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles.
Total time in space by both vehicles across four flights now stands at 2,085 days.
"This mission once again set an on-orbit endurance record and marks the vehicle's first landing in the state of Florida," Lt. Col. Ron Fehlen, X-37B program manager, said in the Air Force statement. "We are incredibly pleased with the performance of the space vehicle and are excited about the data gathered to support the scientific and space communities."
The program's fifth launch is expected later this year.
Two X-37Bs, also known as OTVs, or orbital test vehicles, are known to exist. OTV-1 flew the program's first and third missions while OTV-2, flew the second and fourth, which began with launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on May 20, 2015.
A nose-on view of the X-37B, one of two autonomous military spaceplanes used for classified missions in low-Earth orbit.
U.S. AIR FORCE
The spacecraft are believed to fly as orbital test beds for advanced technology sensors and other systems but the program is classified, and the Air Force provides almost no details on the nature of the space plane's missions, what might have been accomplished or when the reusable craft might fly again.
But before OTV-2 took off on its just-ended flight, the Air Force acknowledged two experiments: a NASA materials science project and one to test an Aerojet Rocketdyne Hall-effect thruster, which generates low but steady thrust by accelerating electrically charged xenon ions. The thrusters are used aboard Advanced Extremely-High Frequency military communications satellites.
But in general, the X-37 program is conducted in near total secrecy.
Joan Johnson-Freese, a space policy analyst at the Naval War College, said before the most recent launching that the X-37B appears to be what the Air Force claims, a technology demonstrator and testbed. But she said the secrecy surrounding the program likely will continue fueling interest among potential adversaries.
"What's interesting to me is it's being done in such an opaque manner," she said. "If the Chinese were doing this, oh my God, there would be congressional hearings on a daily basis and programs being ginned up to respond to it. It has capabilities that other countries aren't sure about, and so they're going to be very nervous about them. If it's a highly maneuverable space vehicle, that has some pretty significant implications."
Play VIDEO
SpaceX launch a major test for its re-usable technology
The original idea for a small unmanned orbiter was developed by NASA and built by Boeing's Phantom Works division. But the program was turned over to the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, in 2004.
Two years later, the Air Force took over. The first X-37B took off on the program's initial orbital test flight April 22, 2010. The spacecraft spent nearly 225 days in orbit before gliding to a computer-controlled touchdown at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
A second X-37B, the same one that landed Sunday, was launched on March 5, 2011. It spent 469 days in space, landing June 16, 2012, at Vandenberg. The third flight, the second for the original OTV-1, took off on Dec. 11, 2012 and landed in California on Oct. 17, 2014, after logging nearly 675 days aloft.
The unmanned orbiters are based on the same lifting body design used for the space shuttle and they fly a similar re-entry trajectory.
But the X-37B features more lightweight composite materials, improved wing insulation and tougher heat-shield tiles that "are significantly more durable than the first generation tiles used by the space shuttle," according to a Boeing website description. "All avionics on the X-37B are designed to automate all de-orbit and landing functions."
The X-37B is equipped with a scaled-down 4-foot-by-7-foot payload bay. But unlike the space shuttle, which relied on fuel cells for electrical power, the Air Force spaceplane is equipped with a deployable solar array that permits it to remain in orbit for long-duration missions.
But exactly what the X-37B does in orbit remains a mystery.
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