"The Secret Space Plane" Topic

"The second copy of the Air Force¡¯s X-37B robotic space plane landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California early Saturday morning, ending a record-breaking 469-day orbital mission that began atop an Atlas rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on March 5, 2011. The safe landing of Orbital Test Vehicle 2 after more than 15 months in space is an indisputable triumph for the U.S. military and space industry. Much less certain is the X-37¡äs future. Budget cuts, labor woes and the looming specter of a Chinese rival could blunt the diminutive robo-shuttle¡¯s orbital edge.

The Boeing-built X-37B, in development since the 1990s, was designed to operate nine months at a time between refueling and refurbishment. But with just two copies of the roughly billion-dollar space plane in the inventory, the Air Force wanted to get as much mileage as possible out of each. After OTV-1¡äs proof-of-concept flight from April to December 2010, OTV-2¡äs mission became an endurance test. ¡°One of the goals of this mission was to see how much farther we could push the on-orbit duration,¡± said Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the Air Force¡¯s X-37B program manager.

The key to the X-37¡äs marathon flight: fuel and energy management. ¡°It sips fuel like a Prius,¡± one space insider said of the mini-shuttle. Even so, Air Force controllers on the ground had to pay close attention to the X-37¡äs orbital profile and its use of engines, batteries and extendable solar panels.

Officially, the 29-foot-long X-37 is a research vehicle, meant to carry small experiments in its payload bay, which is roughly the size of a pickup truck bed. But the winged vehicle¡¯s maneuverability and flexibility mean it¡¯s capable of much more: spy missions, cargo deliveries to the International Space Station, even sneaking up on and tampering with enemy satellites. Some observers speculated that OTV-2 was monitoring China¡¯s Tiangong space station, a notion that Secure World Foundation analyst Brian Weeden dismissed. ¡°If the U.S. really wanted to observe Tiangong, it has enough assets to do that without using X-37B.¡±

In any case, the X-37 partially fills a gap left by the retirement last summer of the much larger NASA Space Shuttle. ¡°The X-37B OTV program brings a singular capability to space technology development,¡± McIntyre said. Boeing has proposed to build a bigger X-37C version that could carry more experiments, more cargo ¡ª and even astronauts.

But it¡¯s not clear that the existing X-37s will survive much longer in the cash-strapped Air Force, which is struggling to pay for new bombers, new aerial tankers and the trillion-dollar F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. In September, Air Force Space Command boss Gen. William Shelton questioned the space plane¡¯s worth. ¡°It¡¯s very flexible, in that you¡¯ve got a payload bay in which you can launch, then it comes down, then you can launch it back ¡ª but whether or not it¡¯s cost effective is the question.¡±

Complicating the Air Force¡¯s budgetary calculations, Boeing is in the process of shutting down the cutting-edge facility in Huntington Beach, California, where the X-37s were hand-assembled. In recent years Building 31, as the facility is known, has been a labor battleground between Boeing management and its rank-and-file engineers. The company plans to shutter the facility next year. Possible future X-37s could be built elsewhere, but the loss of Building 31¡äs skilled workforce could drive up the cost.

Meanwhile, the U.S. mini-shuttle could soon have competition. China is developing its own space plane called Shenlong ¡ª and apparently test-flew it for the first time in January last year. ¡°Beijing may be entering the spaceplane era faster than many would have predicted,¡± warns Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College analyst.

Currently the Air Force plans to launch OTV-1 on its second mission this fall, with OTV-2 possibly to follow on its own sophomore launch sometime next year. If the Air Force continues improving the X-37¡äs performance, these coming missions could be even more amazing than the just-completed record-breaker. But that¡¯s assuming the money keeps flowing."
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(Incluiding a video).

Amicalement
Armand

We probably used the spaceplane to lay mines/kilsats in orbit. That's what I would do.

Yup, it's so secret they announced that they were building it and they announced when they were launching it. More old news.

Well, to be fair, they aren't telling us what it was up to.

The B-2 bomber is pretty secret still, despite seeing pics of it, and knowing some of what it can do.

I imagine it was probably used as a fairly mobile, satellite surveillance system, unlike most other satellites, which fly in predictable orbits, so the enemy can hide things from them.

It's probably good for deploying small satellites, and/or ASAT weapons, when/if needed.

nah…..they were sending ET 'home'….it's how they 'exchange' Alien ambassadors…without using flying saucers which always bring up all that nasty media attention!

Our chap goes up in the plane and 'meets' with the ET's and then comes back…(hopefully), or we exchange staff from Area 51 and orbit that way….

…Didn't you get the memo????

DWW it wasn't in English…

I agree. Not really secret at all. I remember the subject of the X37 being brought up before. Tango01 posted a thread about it on 29 Mar 2012.
TMP link
Robert

Pilotless US space plane lands after 469 days in orbit
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) June 17, 2012

"A pilotless space plane developed by the US Air Force has landed safely back on Earth after spending 469 days in orbit, officials said.

The robotic X-37B, a sort of miniature space shuttle weighing just five tonnes and measuring some 29 feet (8.8 meters) long, touched down Saturday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in western California, the Air Force said in a statement.

The reusable plane had launched from Cape Canaveral in southern Florida in March 2011 carrying "secret" equipment, feeding media speculation about its true mission.

"The vehicle was designed for a mission duration of about 270 days," said X-37B program manager Lieutenant Colonel Tom McIntyre of the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV).

"We knew from post-flight assessments from the first mission that OTV-1 could have stayed in orbit longer. So one of the goals of this mission was to see how much farther we could push the on-orbit duration."

A similar craft carried out a mission in 2010, staying seven months in space before also landing at the Vandenberg base some 160 miles (260 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.

The space plane, which has a wing span of about 15 feet (4.5 meters) and operates at speeds 25 faster than the speed of sound, is a quarter of the size of the US space shuttle. The shuttle program was grounded in July 2011.

Results from the X-37B will "aid in the design and development of NASA's Orbital Space Plane, designed to provide a crew rescue and crew transport capability to and from the International Space Station," NASA said in fact sheet.

McIntyre said that following the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, the X-37B program "brings a singular capability to space technology development."

"The return capability allows the Air Force to test new technologies without the same risk commitment faced by other programs," he added.

Boeing, which is developing two of the vehicles, congratulated the Air Force on the craft's successful landing.

Paul Rusnock, Boeing vice president of government space systems, said this second craft allowed them to test "the vehicle design even further by extending the 220-day mission duration of the first vehicle, and testing additional capabilities.

"We look forward to the second launch of OTV-1 later this year and the opportunity to demonstrate that the X-37B is an affordable space vehicle that can be repeatedly reused."

Among the new technologies being tested are the X-37B's advanced thermal protection and solar power systems, along with environmental modeling and range safety technologies, according to McIntyre.

"Each mission helps us continue to advance the state-of-the-art in these areas," he said."

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I'd like to see a faster launch-and-relaunch cycle. Doesn't do any good to have the incredible orbital duration or reusable craft at all if it takes just as long to refurbish the craft as it does to build a new one!