The X-37B is designed to stay in space as long as nine months and to collect electronic signals of all kinds in a way that other countries can’t stop. The Air Force is not commenting on its mission.
By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer
The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, carrying an X-37B experimental robotic space plane, lifts off from launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Tuesday. (John Raoux/AP)
The Air Force’s launch this week of its new super-secret robotic plane into orbit is an important new technological step for the US military.
The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) looks like a mini space shuttle at 29 feet long. It is the third test of the OTV.
“It’s testing the envelope for this vehicle, and so it’s a big deal in that regard,” says Capt. Nicholas Plante, a spokesman for the US Air Force.
Publicly, the Air Force says that this is a chance to fine-tune “an affordable, reusable space vehicle.”
That is no small feat. In the past, US space “flight” has been less like flying and more akin to billiards, says James Lewis, director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It hasn’t really been flight because in a flight you can maneuver, you can pull on the controls.”
In a testing procedure, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle taxis on the flightline on March 30 at the Astrotech facility in Titusville, Fla.
But the X-37B really does more closely resemble space flight. “A maneuverable spacecraft is unique,” says Dr. Lewis. “It’s really hard to do.”
The aircraft is designed to complete a mission that lasts as long as nine months, according to the Air Force. After that time, the OTV will automatically reenter the atmosphere, and descend and land horizontally on a runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
“This mission will further expand the test envelope” of the OTV, and verify that it can demonstrate “repeatability and reliability,” according to an Air Force statement.
The length of the mission indicates that the OTV has a more covert mission as well. There wouldn’t be a need to stay in orbit for months otherwise, Lewis says. “It’s not like it’s just a bus designed to take things into space and bring them back.”
This experiment show that the US can use space “as a platform for sensors that can collect on things in a way other countries really can’t stop,” he adds.
In the case of the X-37B this likely includes collecting “electronic signals of all kinds,” whether it’s microwave communications or the ability to measure data from a distance.
“In the case of, say, the recent North Korean missile launch this could include messages going back and forth between the ground control and the missiles, as well as measuring the heat signature and the flight path of the launch.
“There’s lots of good stuff that you can collect to give you an idea of what the other side is up to,” says Lewis.
These are details that the Air Force will not share. “I can’t go into the details of the mission any further,” says Plante.
What is clear is that it has long been a goal of NASA to lower the cost of putting things into orbit. “A lot of the time people talk about America losing its lead in space, but a maneuverable spacecraft is unique,” Lewis says. “Now America is doing something no one else can do.”
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RELATED STORY:
Secret shuttle launch: US military’s X-37B to spy on Middle East?
Secret shuttle launch goes off without a hitch Tuesday. But what is the secret mission of X-37B? The robotic, military shuttle spent seven months in space during its last mission. It could be spying on terrorists, speculates one scientist.
By Marcia Dunn
Associated Press
Associated Press
Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle at the Astrotech facility in Titusville, Fla., two years ago. On Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012, the Air Force launched the top-secret, unmanned mini-space shuttle from Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/U.S. Air Force via NASA)
The military’s small, top-secret version of the space shuttle rocketed into orbit Tuesday for a repeat mystery mission, two years after making the first flight of its kind.
The Air Force launched the unmanned, robotic spacecraft Tuesday hidden on top of an Atlas V rocket.
It’s the third flight for the X-37B spaceplane. It circled the planet for seven months in 2010. A second X-37B spacecraft spent more than a year in orbit.
These high-tech mystery machines — 29 feet long — are about one-quarter the size of NASA’s old space shuttles and can land automatically on a runway. The two previous touchdowns occurred in Southern California; this one might end on NASA’s three-mile-long runway once reserved for the space agency’s shuttles.
The military isn’t saying much if anything about this new secret mission. In fact, launch commentary ended 17 minutes into the flight.
But one scientific observer, Harvard University’s Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, speculates the spaceplane is carrying sensors designed for spying and likely is serving as a testbed for future satellites.
While acknowledging he does not know what the spaceplane is carrying, McDowell said on-board sensors could be capable of imaging or intercepting transmissions of electronic emissions from terrorist training sites in Afghanistan or other hot spots.
The beauty of a reusable spaceplane is that it can be launched on short notice based on need, McDowell said.
What’s important about this flight is that it is the first reflight.
“That is pretty cool,” McDowell said, “reusing your spacecraft after a runway landing. That’s something that has only really been done with the shuttle.”
The two previous secret flights were in 200-plus-mile-high orbits, circling at roughly 40-degree angles to the equator. That means the craft flew over the swatch between 40 degrees or so north latitude and 40 degrees or so south latitude.
That puts Russia’s far north out of the spaceplane’s observing realm, McDowell noted. “It might be studying Middle Eastern latitudes or it might just be being used for sensor tests over the United States,” he said.
McDowell speculates that this newest flight will follow suit.
The US military contracted for this flight with United Launch Alliance, a firm that puts objects into orbit using Atlas and Delta, rockets. It’s a joint partnership Lockheed Martin and The Boeing Company.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
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