Amateurs Spy On US Spy Plane 172
arshadk writes with this excerpt from Wired's Danger Room: "The X-37B has generated intense interest, long before it ever left the ground. Boeing originally developed the 29-foot unmanned craft — a kind of miniature Space Shuttle — for NASA. Then, the military took over in 2004, and the space plane went black. Its payloads were classified, its missions hush-hush. ... You can even see the space plane for yourself: The X-37B is traveling in a slightly elliptical orbit more than 200 miles up, swooping from 43 degrees north latitude to 43 degrees south."
Where to look (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.heavens-above.com/ [heavens-above.com]
Enter your coordinates (requires a login, otherwise it's 0 degrees N / 0 degrees E) and look for the X-37B link under "Satellites".
Re:Was that supposed to be a summary? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a summary:
Each time the X-37B is launched a bunch of amateurs make a game out of finding it in orbit. It took a month to find it using telescopes on the first mission, but only 4 days on the current mission. It is currently in a very low (lower than the space station) non-polar orbit, which is unusual for spy satellites, because it will never cross large areas of the planet. So they presume it is used for spying on specific areas on this mission, likely the Middle East as it has good coverage of that area. Basically all that's known is its orbit, not what it is capable of nor what it is actually doing.
Re:Metricate, damnit! (Score:2, Informative)
No. We already use it for any serious scientific or engineering work (with the exception if this idiot blunder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter [wikipedia.org])
Why does it make you so upset that we use SI for our recipes and street signs?
Re:Where's The Money From? (Score:3, Informative)
No, I find it absolutely wonderful that our military is broad and powerful enough to nearly 100% guarantee that our scientists and engineers have the time to spend on civilian pursuits like medical breakthroughs, discovering the far edges of our universe and creating sweet shit like velcro. It's pitiful that people like you think freedom costs nothing. A few hundred years ago, you'd be a shit shoveling peasant in some god forsaken hell hole. Look at you know though, you can follow the oust of Mubarak from Egypt from the comfort of your reddit bookmark.
Re:Was that supposed to be a summary? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hard to believe (Score:5, Informative)
This is space we're talking about. And There Ain't No Stealth In Space [projectrho.com].
Re:Hard to believe (Score:4, Informative)
Define 'black'. If you're using the definition from every day conversation, then you mean 'something that doesn't emit or reflect light in the narrow band of the EM spectrum visible to human eyes' and that's pretty easy to achieve. If you use a more scientific definition, it's much harder. If it's actually doing anything, then it will be generating heat. Every time it changes orbit, it will be firing a rocket, which has a huge IR signature and is trivial to track with very cheap equipment.
This is the problem with most stealth technology - it only protects against a narrow range of sensor technologies.