US Air Force Launches Secret Flying Twinkie 234
Spectrummag writes "One of the most secretive US Air Force spaceflights in decades, launched this month, is keeping aficionados guessing as to the nature of the secret. The 6000-kilogram, 8-meter X-37B, nicknamed the flying Twinkie because of its stubby-winged shape, is supposed to orbit Earth for several weeks, maneuver in orbit, then glide home. What's it for? Space expert James Oberg tracks the possibilities."
Re:I'll say it... (Score:2, Interesting)
Except Taco misquoted Ghostbusters. I wasn't going to point it out.
Recover, Repair, Refuel Satellites (Score:3, Interesting)
A scaled up version of this could replace capabilities that the shuttle provided to the military.
Sure they launch sats on rockets now, but they can't do any of the maintenance with a rocket. Also is folks listened to the MIT lectures on building the shuttle, they mentioned that the engines in the shuttle wouldn't have to be torn down and rebuilt between flights if the electronics were built onto the engine such the engines could be tested without removing them.
I'm sure there are other what if style improvements that the shuttle built from blueprints could benefit from in the age of CAD that would aid in the rapid turnaround of any new vehicle designed with the Twinkie's test data.
What the X-37 is REALLY doing in orbit... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is just conjecture. On a 'big' war day we are going to want to disable enemy satellites. We have ground based interceptors -- but there can be delays in launch windows, plus the 'bad' guys are going to be on guard and can take some evasive actions.
How about our little X-37 with a cargo bay and manipulator arm goes and pays those 'nasty' satellites a visit right now and attaches a few pounds of high explosive with a radio detonator. When the war starts you push a button and they all disappear!
Just in case they send a maintenance flight up, our little bomblets can also be equipped with a radio controlled 'spring' that detaches them from the satellite. No one is the wiser.
Possible?
Re:Speculation in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
My logic (against a rival spacefaring nation): If you build it on a satellite, a strategically deployed paint fleck can render you defenseless until you can arrange for another satellite and launcher. Make a satellite maneuverable enough to dodge strategically deployed paint flecks and the fuel requirements may make your satellite huge and/or short lived. Put it on a space plane and you can dodge all you want, and just relaunch as needed if you don't dodge well enough.
My logic (against rogue states): if you build it on a geostationary satellite and guess wrong as to where the next threat is coming from, you now need another satellite. If you build it on a network of satellites, you need the whole bloody network to not have blind spots. If you build it on space planes, you just fly them over whomever is the rogue of the moment.
My logic (against the UN): satellites are subject to international treaties regarding the weaponizing of space. Planes-that-work-like-satellites are less so.
Re:What the X-37 is REALLY doing in orbit... (Score:2, Interesting)
Or..., attach something that can futz with the function of the bird. Killing it outright certainly removes an asset from enemy hands, but turning that asset can, under certain conditions, be even more valuable.
Re:Nasa should reclaim this (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt this has anything at all to do with NASA, and NASA is in no position to reclaim anything from military projects.
This system is built on designs for flight test prototypes developed when the shuttle was being designed, and refined thereafter.
TFA says: "The official description of the mission talks of demonstrating "a rapid-turnaround airborne test bed." That makes sense, but there is no sign that anyone plans to fly the vehicle ever again" which is pure utter nonsense. You don't build a lander to fly once.
The article also suggests it will attempt never before attempted things such as automated approach and landing. Stuff the Russians demonstrated with SnowStorm. [russianspaceweb.com] along with the automated rendezvous which Russian cargo launches have been doing for years.
This is the Air Forces access to payload deployment and return. There is no point in making it landable if all you need is delivery with no return.
This is the prototype of Predator Drone of space, and/or instantly deployable Command and Control platforms, with plausible dependability.
Ex-craniate folks, the Air Force does not intend to allow sat-killers go un-challenged when so much of US military operations rely on space based coms and control.
Re:Recover, Repair, Refuel Satellites (Score:5, Interesting)
That's relevant to the things that electronics can test for. (A very small subset of the things that are tested/inspected on and SSME.) Not to mention that if such things were truly practical (electronics substituting for inspection and/or teardown), commercial aviation would be using it for jet engines.
Not to mention that they haven't removed the engines after every flight for over fifteen years, and haven't rebuilt them every time they're removed for over a decade.
This vehicle's (single flight) test data is roughly meaningless compared to the thirty years of flight experience for the Shuttle itself. Seriously, the Shuttle's problems don't stem from lack of CAD. CAD is just a fancy version of Microsoft Paint - you still need the engineering information behind the design. Without that information it doesn't matter if you use chisels on stone tablets or the latest engineering workstation.
There lies the key problem with the Shuttle, lack of funding, lack of basic technology research, lack of engineering development, and a healthy helping of excess ambition on the part of NASA and successive Congresses and Administrations. The Shuttle went wrong when those three collectively decided not to expand on the groundwork laid by the X-15 and the various lifting body projects in favor of Buck Rogers stunts.
Re:Speculation in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd actually think that something like this would be ideal to TAKE OUT a satellite, or a satellite interceptor.
A polar orbit means that its relative velocity would be large compared to any less inclined orbit.
Ability to launch and return in a single polar orbit means that it would be hard to shoot down - it would have to fly right over an enemy launch site to do so since they wouldn't spot it until it was entering their airspace and there would be no time to vector an interception from elsewhere. You only have a few minutes to launch even if you happen to have an ASAT missile right on its flight path (which obviously the US would avoid anyway when they put it into orbit).
So, the USAF identifies a bunch of satellites they want to shoot down, then they put this thing into orbit which parks interceptors in polar orbits that will hit each of the targets. Then it re-enters and returns to base.
Another option is recon - this thing could be launched at any inclination to get to any point in the earth quickly and then be able to return to base more quickly with cross-range capability.
Those are just some wild guesses. Wings do give you options - no sense having them unless your mission demands them.
Re:Speculation in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
Really this just sounds like a fancier version of the SR-71/U-2 spyplane. Spy satellite are great things and can photograph pretty much anything given a long enough period of time; the problem is they're only going to be over the exact patch of dirt you're interested in perhaps once a week, and it might be cloudy (or night time!) when that happens.
Enter the spy plane. The U-2 and SR-71 (and A-12, but that was discontinued in the 60's) are designed to get "now" pics without having to wait. Call up Bobby Hill AFB in California or Hank Hill AFB in Virginia and in 8 hours you can get an up to date photograph of exactly what's going on anywhere in the world.
Now imagine you combine the two. The availability and speed of a spy plane, but the international benefit of staying out of of your enemy's airspace. Plus, due to the momentum it has, it stays in orbit for weeks, so after you buzz Moscow, you can do a course correction to your flying twinkie and hit up St. Petersburg, Beijing, Pyongyang, or Tehran to see where the weapons shipments are headed. Course corrections cost a lot of fuel for a satellite, which will be in orbit for years or decades, but course correction fuel on a reusable satellite that will only be up for a matter of weeks is cheap.
Also it's a lot harder to hit a new sattelite with an unknown and changing orbit. The chinese have proven that they can knock a U-2 flying at 90,000ft out of the air [google.com].
Re:What the X-37 is REALLY doing in orbit... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then again, this is all just conjecture on my part. It may be something as simple as the air force wanting the ability fly up to a Chinese satellite and poke it inappropriately hard with the manipulator arm to break its camera or send it spinning uncontrollably out of its intended orbit.
What the shuttle can do that Orion can't... (Score:3, Interesting)