Secret X-37B spaceplane lands after 780 days in orbit

Secret X-37B spaceplane lands after 780 days in orbit | TheHill

The U.S. Air Force announced Sunday that it successfully landed its X-37 B spaceplane at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility after a two-year orbital flight, according to Reuters.

The spaceplane touched down around 3:51 a.m. after orbiting for about 780 days. The Air Force deployed the plane, which is about the size of a small bus, in 2017 mounted on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
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Interesting. I doubt that anyone in the civilian sphere was taking pix at that hour but you can bet the Russians were there.

See Boeing X-37 - Wikipedia. The entire project is said to demonstrate the concept of reusable spacecraft. It is called the OTV (Orbital Test Vehicle). This Wiki article is up to today's date as far as operations are concerned.

Older X-37B article: US military's secret space plane lands with sonic boom in Florida | US news | The Guardian

Unmanned X-37B, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, was in orbit for more than 700 days before landing caused sonic boom heard across state

Interesting pix. Service guys in protective gear says use of toxic propellant like dinitrogen tetroxide.

JacksinPA said:

Secret X-37B spaceplane lands after 780 days in orbit | TheHill

The U.S. Air Force announced Sunday that it successfully landed its X-37 B spaceplane at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility after a two-year orbital flight, according to Reuters.

The spaceplane touched down around 3:51 a.m. after orbiting for about 780 days. The Air Force deployed the plane, which is about the size of a small bus, in 2017 mounted on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
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Interesting. I doubt that anyone in the civilian sphere was taking pix at that hour but you can bet the Russians were there.

See Boeing X-37 - Wikipedia. The entire project is said to demonstrate the concept of reusable spacecraft. It is called the OTV (Orbital Test Vehicle).

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A tentative step in the direction of a more cost effective new shuttle program or simply a reusable launch vehicle for deploying satellites?

I think it goes deeper than that. A reusable space craft that they put into orbit for 780 days? They already have surveillance satellites. This one has some other, classified mission or missions.

JacksinPA said:

I think it goes deeper than that. A reusable space craft that they put into orbit for 780 days? They already have surveillance satellites. This one has some other, classified mission or missions.

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I would think anything unmanned could be placed into orbit for extended periods of time; I wonder if such a system could also be used to retrieve items from orbit as well as deploying them.

The shuttle is not a secret, it's mission is. I amazed that most people don't know about this.

JacksinPA said:

I think it goes deeper than that. A reusable space craft that they put into orbit for 780 days? They already have surveillance satellites. This one has some other, classified mission or missions.

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US depends mightily upon satellites. What happens when some or most are obliterated?
And weapons

beefheart said:

I amazed that most people don't know about this.

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That's why I posted this.

JacksinPA said:

Secret X-37B spaceplane lands after 780 days in orbit | TheHill

The U.S. Air Force announced Sunday that it successfully landed its X-37 B spaceplane at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility after a two-year orbital flight, according to Reuters.

The spaceplane touched down around 3:51 a.m. after orbiting for about 780 days. The Air Force deployed the plane, which is about the size of a small bus, in 2017 mounted on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
==================================================
Interesting. I doubt that anyone in the civilian sphere was taking pix at that hour but you can bet the Russians were there.

See Boeing X-37 - Wikipedia. The entire project is said to demonstrate the concept of reusable spacecraft. It is called the OTV (Orbital Test Vehicle). This Wiki article is up to today's date as far as operations are concerned.

Older X-37B article: US military's secret space plane lands with sonic boom in Florida | US news | The Guardian

Unmanned X-37B, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, was in orbit for more than 700 days before landing caused sonic boom heard across state

Interesting pix. Service guys in protective gear says use of toxic propellant like dinitrogen tetroxide.

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It is not too secret if everyone knows about it. However this looks like a repeat of the space shuttle program too expensive. The last program we did proved vastly more expensive than disposable rockets, caused the soviets to think we were weaponizing space, which caused the soviets to build a superior shuttle which flew only one time because it was way too expensive plus they learned america was not weaponizing space so they realized the massively expensive project was a waste when they could use disposable rockets.

However then the secrecy of space shuttles was not so secret, infact the soviets should have questioned the fact they got most of it to build their shuttle without any spying or theft but rather from sources open to the public. In this case I wonder if it is space shuttle 2.0. If they can get the costs down it will work great, but if it costs like the shuttles did, it will cost a fortune more to send them than simple disposable rockets.

JANFU said:

US depends mightily upon satellites. What happens when some or most are obliterated?
And weapons

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It is more practical to use the rocket that would launch the shuttle to launch a new satellite. The cargo bay on the X37B reportedly is smaller than a full sized pick-up bed (7' X4' for the shuttle). Seems more likely they are just using it to test sensors and materials that would be used to build future space equipment.

Bum said:

I would think anything unmanned could be placed into orbit for extended periods of time; I wonder if such a system could also be used to retrieve items from orbit as well as deploying them.

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Unmanned collection might be a worthy cause, america has a metric **** ton of spy sattelites alone and russia has something like 4 times that number, and this is not including other nations or even civilian use sattelites. All of them are designed to fall to earth when they fail, however the where they fall is not always controlled, imagine if we could use a recovery system to recover those old sattellites before they reach their end life and descend onto earth.

beerftw said:

Unmanned collection might be a worthy cause, america has a metric **** ton of spy sattelites alone and russia has something like 4 times that number, and this is not including other nations or even civilian use sattelites. All of them are designed to fall to earth when they fail, however the where they fall is not always controlled, imagine if we could use a recovery system to recover those old sattellites before they reach their end life and descend onto earth.

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Excellent point; I imagine it could also be used to deploy, observe, and then recover prototype orbital weapons platforms......something you really wouldn't want random orbital decay to potentially deliver to a nation not on friendly terms with the US.

JacksinPA said:

That's why I posted this.

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This was the 5th mission, between 2 spacecraft.

JANFU said:

US depends mightily upon satellites. What happens when some or most are obliterated?
And weapons

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Then nothing will be able to survive in Earth orbit from all the debris that will chop itself into rings of dust over the centuries.