Title : Mystery Surrounds Air Force's Secretive X-37B Space Plane Landing Plan
link : Mystery Surrounds Air Force's Secretive X-37B Space Plane Landing Plan
Mystery Surrounds Air Force's Secretive X-37B Space Plane Landing Plan
secret space plane X-37B Air Force of the United States has been circling the Earth for more than 10 months and does not know when it might come down.Beginning Friday (20 January), the mysterious X-37B robotic spacecraft has been airborne for 321 days, surviving life significantly declared mission design 270 days. But you can stay longer, however, experts say, especially if the military views this space mission - the second time the very secret vehicle. - As a kind of test of resistance
" because it is an experimental vehicle, which kind of want to see what your limits are, "said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser to the Secure World Foundation and former orbital analyst with the Air Force.
a mission long mystery
the Air Force launched the X-37B in March 2011 the shipping reusable space plane design in his second space mission. The X-37B now zipping around our planet is known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2, or OTV-2.
Another vehicle X-37B, the OTV-1, launched in April 2010 and landed in December that year, remaining in orbit for 225 days - well under assumed limit of 270 days of the unmanned spacecraft. But OTV-2 has already exceeded that limit in more than seven weeks, and the calendar continues to rotate more.
Accumulating a lot of time in space could be a key part of the current mission, according to Weeden.
"I did not want to push it, simply because it was the first of its kind," he told SPACE.com, referring to the flight of OTV-1. "But I think they are looking to push the second."
Statements of officials of the Air Force seem to support the assumption Weeden.
"This successful flight is important in the progression the X-37B program, moving forward in our effort to demonstrate the utility and cost-effectiveness of, long-lasting unmanned, reusable spacecraft, "Air Force Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, director of program X-37 systems, to SPACE.com in late November, when OTV-2 hit the milestone of 270 days.
"We hope to try to expand on the platform by extending the mission even further," said McIntyre.
testing new technologies?
the X-37B is a lot like the space shuttle now retired from NASA, only that much smaller. The unmanned vehicle is about 29 feet long by 15 feet wide (8.8 by 4.5 meters), with a cargo box the size of a pickup truck. By way of comparison, two entire X-37Bs could fit inside the cargo bay of a space shuttle.
Just what the X-37B for so long while circling our planet remains a mystery, because the payloads and missions spaceplane is classified
partly as a result of secrecy, some concerns have been raised. - especially by Russia and China - that the X-37B may be a space weapon of some sort. However, the Air Force has repeatedly denied that charge, arguing that the main task of the vehicle is testing new technologies for future satellites.
This is likely to be the case, Weeden said, which published a report in 2010 that investigated the X-37B and possible missions.
the Air Force does not disclose the orbital parameters of the X-37B, but observers fans have tracked the movements of both OTV-1 and OTV- 2. They found that OTV-2 is not a loop around the Earth in a polar orbit, allowing a good look at every point on the globe.
Rather, the spacecraft is repeatedly flying along the stretch Earth from 43 degrees north latitude and 43 degrees south latitude. Weeden believes the spaceplane can be seen the Middle East and Afghanistan with some equipment again espionage, perhaps instruments optimized for observing at wavelengths beyond the visible light spectrum.
Earlier this month, an article in the journal space Flight, a British publication, speculated that OTV-2 could be spy on Tiangong-1 recently launched prototype space module China. However, the orbits of the two robotic vehicles are very different, so this highly improbable, Weeden and other experts scenario underlined
Source:. space
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