US Air Force's Mysterious X-37B Space Plane Sets New Record For Time In Space (cnn.com) 50
"An Air Force X-37B spaceplane just completed its 718th day in orbit, making it the longest mission yet for a secretive military test program," reports CNN:
The US military has launched five uncrewed X-37B spaceplanes into orbit over the past decade, and each flight has been longer than its predecessor...
What is known is that the military is using the planes to develop reusable spaceflight technology. Officials don't necessarily want to reuse the same X-37B plane multiple times, but the Air Force designed the craft to try out new navigation systems as well as methods for reentering the Earth's atmosphere and for landing safely back on terra firma. The X-37B is also popular among space fans because of its unique design. The planes, which look like miniature space shuttles, launch into orbit atop powerful rockets and then break away to carry out their mission. When their duties are complete, they swoop back toward Earth and touch down horizontally on a runway, like a commercial airplane or space shuttle orbiter coming in for landing...
The current X-37B plane in orbit, called OTV-5, was launched to space in September 2017 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The previous flight, for OTV-4, was 718 days long and ended in May 2017.
What is known is that the military is using the planes to develop reusable spaceflight technology. Officials don't necessarily want to reuse the same X-37B plane multiple times, but the Air Force designed the craft to try out new navigation systems as well as methods for reentering the Earth's atmosphere and for landing safely back on terra firma. The X-37B is also popular among space fans because of its unique design. The planes, which look like miniature space shuttles, launch into orbit atop powerful rockets and then break away to carry out their mission. When their duties are complete, they swoop back toward Earth and touch down horizontally on a runway, like a commercial airplane or space shuttle orbiter coming in for landing...
The current X-37B plane in orbit, called OTV-5, was launched to space in September 2017 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The previous flight, for OTV-4, was 718 days long and ended in May 2017.
How are the crew doing? (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how the crew are holding up....
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Re: How are the crew doing? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: How are the crew doing? (Score:5, Funny)
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I just wonder how CNN knows that this is "the longest mission yet for a secretive military test program". I would assume they could only call it the longest that we know of.
Or maybe it's the longest mission yet for a secretive but not quite totally secret mission. That might be more accurate.
Re: How are the crew doing? (Score:1)
It's a secret.
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Clearly they are endurance testing it, so that it can be used as a nuclear weapons launch platform, with the claim it is not a satellite but just a 'plane' only temporarily in orbit, with it's nuclear weapons for years on end. Kind of stupid at it's core because hacking it would be a top priority for obvious reasons, a long term enduring legal to attack target from foreign countries. The is a real core problem with satellite weapons, they are a permanent technically legal target, not pointed at them, just t
Re: How are the crew doing? (Score:4, Funny)
The problem is that there are no whooshing sounds in space.
I believe the phrase you are looking for is "In space, no one can hear you whoosh!"
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The secret part is the crew that doesn't exist.... yeah... they never were on board.... ;-)
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Dude, no spoilers!
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They should have called it a space drone. I'll grant that "drone" gets overused, but this thing is pretty much just like the militaries' other drones, in space.
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Ah, uncrewed going up but coming back? That's the rub...
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They are probably in cryogenic suspended animation.
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Mission patch and all, for flying a robot.
Like the drone crews but much better hours.
Obligatory toilet question (Score:2)
Why is the DOD wasting so much money on spacecraft which dont even carry people when most of the Appalachians are still using outhouses and the water in Flint is not fit to drink?
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What are they doing up there? (Score:3)
What are they doing up there circling the Earth? I'll bet they are up to no good!
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Assuming you are referencing the Space Command that was in the news recently, it should, perhaps, be pointed out that it was created in 1985...
The latest iteration has fewer than 300 people assigned to it, so what we have now a General Officer billet commanding what amounts to a reinforced company (a captain's billet)....
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The nuclear power plant gets strange truck visits going to a "lab".
Strange shapes rolled at mil airports and quickly rolled back in again. In time with traditional US spy sat hours.
Nobody expects the US space plane.
Secretive military test program (Score:4, Interesting)
The US military has launched five
The current X-37B plane in orbit, called OTV-5
It's a secret. Are we sure there are five of them? Maybe it's like the prank where you release three pigs in your high school. Paint #1, #3 and #4 on them and watch the antics ensue as they try to locate #2.
Or like Seal Team Six.
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It's a secret. Are we sure there are five of them?
Getting something into orbit takes a big fucking rocket. There's people all over the place that's going to notice a rocket, even if they launched them in the dark of night. There's going to be airplane crew that see it, and launches show on flight notices to keep planes from running into them. These things show up on weather radar. They make a lot of noise from a bright flame shooint out the bottom. These observers are going to be not only people in the USA but also nations that are not so friendly wit
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Oh, and once in orbit these satellites can be tracked with not much more than a lawn chair, binoculars, a notepad, calculator, stopwatch, a few beverages, and time.
Maybe. Supposedly, these have the capability to maneuver in orbit. So if you don't know how many there are or how many are up at one time (one big fucking rocket looks pretty much like the next), the USAF can play a game of 3 card monte to keep the orbits difficult to analyze. Odds are that such capabilities probably won't be tested until they are needed. Or the shuffle trick will be given away. But I could easily understand them keeping the number of available vehicles secret.
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Are we sure there are five of them? Maybe it's like the prank where you release three pigs in your high school. Paint #1, #3 and #4 on them and watch the antics ensue as they try to locate #2.
Or like Seal Team Six.
I was thinking of Heinz "57 varieties".
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In reality it took them 1624 tries to get the recipe right for Heinz "57" but they realized that nobody was going to buy Heinz 1624 and so they made up the number 57 because it sounded much better. Thus we have Hienz 57. It has nothing to do with the number of varieties.
Re:Secretive military test program (Score:4, Informative)
'OTV-5' is the mission designation not the vehicle designation, and so far there are known to be two X-37B vehicles (both of which are known to have flown 2 missions each), but which one is flying OTV-5 is currently unknown so theres a potential for a third to be in existence (but its more likely to be the third flight of vehicle 1).
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How many are needed in a space fleet for global look down?
Editor headline fail (Score:4, Informative)
Why is this even news? (Score:1)
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Actually it doesn't act like the Shuttle since the Shuttle had to be flown by a pilot. This acts like the Soviet Buran shuttle which flew on autopilot.
As for being a waste of money it depends on what they want to do with it. Maybe it will grab old US satellites and bring them down for upgrades?
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but can only have hamsters as passengers...they are actually wasting money on it
When they bring it back to Earth the weightless hamster dance could be a real money-maker.
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When the hamsters return, they discover that a civilization populated by gerbils.
Nuclear warhead delivery (Score:2)
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This is an absurd application for nuclear weapons delivery. We have perfectly good, nearly invulnerable - and dirt cheap - means of dropping bombs on people for more than half a century.
What they say its for, on the other hand (medium-duration recoverable space experiments) is a perfect fit, and replaces the same thing from the shuttle days for far less cost, and far longer possible mission duration. Why is that so hard to believe?
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New platforms don't eliminate the old, but supplement. As such, the above mentioned platforms will continue to have a role to play for the foreseeable future.
Why do you assume this vehicle couldn't be used for multiple purposes? It seems naive to think that this thing is funded by the Air Force yet doesn't the design doesn't have considerations beyond conducting 'm
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Now, I'm not saying that I have any information more than you, nor that I'm confident that this is the purpose of the vehicle. However, I've learned to be very cautious regarding statements coming from people that feel a higher duty to the cause they serve, than truth. I mean, that's part of what we pay these people fo
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Rods from space :)
Stewarts from the ocean
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I'd imagine that a large driver for such a system would be the ability to load nuclear weapons into these craft. The ability to descend the plane from orbit, anywhere about the Earth, with a load of sensors and nuclear weapons, would yield a powerful advantage in war.
So a modernized FOBS?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Good names for planes (Score:3)
Any cool plane should have an X + number in its name, unless it's a Blackbird.