SpaceX Will Help US Space Force Launch Its Secretive X-37B Space Plane (nbcnews.com) 36
"The United States military is preparing to launch its secretive X-37B space plane on a seventh mission in orbit," reports NBC News.
Shaped like a small space shuttle, "It's an itty-bitty spaceplane, not quite 30 feet long and under 10 feet tall," writes the Washington Post, "with a pair of stubby wings and a rounded, bulldog-like nose." Space.com says the launch window for the uncrewed vehicle opens Monday at 8:14 p.m. EST.
From NBC News: For the first time, the X-37B will ride into orbit atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Since its debut more than a decade ago, the X-37B has been a source of intrigue within the space community, mostly owing to the mysterious nature of its activities in low Earth orbit. Despite not knowing its true purpose or location, skywatchers have occasionally spotted and photographed the space plane in the night sky using telescopes... The military is tight-lipped about such operations, but the Space Force said the X-37B missions "are key to ensuring safe and responsible operations in space for all users of the space domain..."
The "U.S. Space Force says that launching on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket will allow testing "in new orbital regimes, experimenting with space domain awareness technologies and investigating the radiation effects to NASA materials."
The Washington Post notes that "The reference about 'space domain awareness' could mean that it will be keeping an eye on other satellites, potentially watching for threats": At least one part of the mission is known. The vehicle will "expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight" in an experiment for NASA. In the past, the Pentagon has also used the X-37B to test some of its cutting edge technologies, including a small solar panel designed to transform solar energy into microwaves, a technology that one day could allow energy harnessed in space to be beamed back to Earth...
If Sunday's X-37B mission is like previous ones, the spaceplane could be in space for a while. Its first flight, which launched in 2010, lasted 224 days.
Shaped like a small space shuttle, "It's an itty-bitty spaceplane, not quite 30 feet long and under 10 feet tall," writes the Washington Post, "with a pair of stubby wings and a rounded, bulldog-like nose." Space.com says the launch window for the uncrewed vehicle opens Monday at 8:14 p.m. EST.
From NBC News: For the first time, the X-37B will ride into orbit atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Since its debut more than a decade ago, the X-37B has been a source of intrigue within the space community, mostly owing to the mysterious nature of its activities in low Earth orbit. Despite not knowing its true purpose or location, skywatchers have occasionally spotted and photographed the space plane in the night sky using telescopes... The military is tight-lipped about such operations, but the Space Force said the X-37B missions "are key to ensuring safe and responsible operations in space for all users of the space domain..."
The "U.S. Space Force says that launching on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket will allow testing "in new orbital regimes, experimenting with space domain awareness technologies and investigating the radiation effects to NASA materials."
The Washington Post notes that "The reference about 'space domain awareness' could mean that it will be keeping an eye on other satellites, potentially watching for threats": At least one part of the mission is known. The vehicle will "expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight" in an experiment for NASA. In the past, the Pentagon has also used the X-37B to test some of its cutting edge technologies, including a small solar panel designed to transform solar energy into microwaves, a technology that one day could allow energy harnessed in space to be beamed back to Earth...
If Sunday's X-37B mission is like previous ones, the spaceplane could be in space for a while. Its first flight, which launched in 2010, lasted 224 days.
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secretive.
i just saw the proof of concept aircraft.
if i was on the design team.
i would not put it on my resume either
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They arent trusting Musk. For spacex Musk is like chief engineer and marketing Rep.
Actual business decisions are done by Shotwell. Who does a really good job of bascially only letting Musk in on certian meetings.
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> Actual business decisions are done by Shotwell. Who does a really good job of bascially only letting Musk in on certian meetings.
Do you have any actual evidence for this Musk Snark ?
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Do you have any actual evidence for this Musk Snark ?
"Must be Musk Snark love" (with apologies to America)
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He's the most reasonable among the few "friends" he's left with. Because all others shun him, just because of their very own immediate political concerns. Shunning Musk is easy to do, but idiotic. He's not an idiot, but leave him with nothing but idiots and he will help them because nobody else will listen to him.
Today the reasonable are idiots too just because they insist in doing the exact opposite of what the idiots want, but the exact opposite of "wrong" is wrong too, just the other way around. It's so
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He's not an idiot
Not a plain idiot. More of an idiot savant.
Unfortunately, he's been doing a lot more wandering around out of his wheelhouse these days, which just serves to showcase his many shortcomings.
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He's not an idiot, ...
True. He's *not* an idiot. But even (really) smart people sometimes do dumb things. ...
Elon just seems to go out of his way to make those things happen, or, at least, help them along.
Maybe he can't help himself and/or has poor impulse control, which would make him immature
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Even though the signs were there you can trace this all the way back to the beginnings of covid where he got into a spat with CA about keeping the Tesla plant open and it seems everything up to the Twitter purchase stemmed from that. The right-wingers got on his side and now he's totally audience captured. Even if his views were to change or even inr eality are more moderate chances are he can't go against the cultural following he's built around himself.
If he's as smart as everyone makes him out to be th
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He's not an idiot, but leave him with nothing but idiots and he will help them because nobody else will listen to him.
I may not be as smart as Musk, but telling your customers to go fuck themselves can't be the greatest of ideas. If his intention was to flush money down the toilet then I guess he's doing great. https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]
Re:Srsly... (Score:4, Insightful)
> ... trusting Musk with anything anymore?
Do you believe his spaceflight operations have become untrustworthy? If so, why?
> We ARE doomed.
Why is that?
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https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
Dan Meyer, a national security attorney at Tully Rinckey's DC office, and Alan Edmunds, whose firm specializes in fighting security clearance denials and revocations, both said they would expect the federal agency in charge of security clearances to open an investigation into Musk in the wake of the Journal report.
In the government's view, "someone who takes a cavalier approach to drug use may take a cavalier approach to the handling of classified information," Meyer said.
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As a preface I'll note that "While ketamine is marketed legally in many countries worldwide,[144] it is also a controlled substance in many countries.[6]"
I consider the talking point of "cavaliering" to be more BS from the continuing propaganda of the War on Drugs(tm), but can be used as a rhetorical weapon by all sides when convenient.
Historically, the primary technical objection to drug use is the fact that it can be used to blackmail someone into becoming a spy against the US.
That won't happen here becau
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Step 1) Musk use his actual skill of hyping investors and get a shitload of money
Step 2) Musk does a lot of stupid decisions while in power because he has no other skills
Step 3) Musk gets tired of the toy, decides to do something else and come up with the next thing
Step 4) As Musk abandon the thing almost entirely, it is finally allowed to thrive under someone with more competence and back to the Step 1 for the next thing
Space Lasers Incoming (Score:3)
"a technology that one day could allow energy harnessed in space to be beamed back to Earth..."
I like how they word that. Surface dwellers beware.
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Yes. The political problems from beamed power may turn out to be as difficult as the technical ones.
bullshit PR (Score:2)
At least one part of the mission is known. The vehicle will "expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight" in an experiment for NASA
Really, that's all they could find ? As there were not 100s of such experiment in the ISS with real "long-duration" ?
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Either it's absolutely made up, or it's something deeply nefarious. Dropping seeds of invasive genetically modified species of plants over remote enemy territory sounds like something the spooks would do.
Imagine dropping corn seeds engineered to grow a toxic variety across enemy farms. Years of slashing and burning would be needed to guarantee none remains.
Launch Complex-39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (Score:1)
> Launch Complex-39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center
This one isn't Vandenberg so probably not a polar orbit so probably not a Black Knight rendezvous as suspected of a previous flight.
Classification of science is just dumb.
Re: Launch Complex-39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Cen (Score:3)
Falcon Heavy launch, so not the run of the mill launch regardless. I happen to be in the Orlando area so I plan to watch in person.
I hope its been added to the contract that (Score:3, Interesting)
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The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was in charge of launching spy satellites, and at one point would always budget for two in case one blew up. They were super expensive, and many didn't need the backup funding. Everything was classified, so the agency just kept the extra money and eventually got found out when they built a new expensive headquarters building without asking for funding.
The US Space Force (Score:2)
They have the insigna and they have the remote-controlled space plane.
Someone has done a lot of shopping at the latest Star Trek convention with all those taxpayers' billions...
"SpaceX Will Help US Space Force Launch" (Score:5, Informative)
Try "launch".
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I dunno, does the X37B have its own insertion engine/tanks? IE: Does it replace the SpaceX second stage? If SpaceX is just the suborbital first stage, then "help launch" seems fine.
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The peroxide is for maneuvering/rentry.
"About 2.5 minutes into the flight, the Falcon 9's two stages separated. While the second stage continued hauling the X-37B to orbit, [...]
Spacex *launches* it.
https://www.space.com/38067-spacex-launches-x-37b-space-plane.html
Plant seeds? (Score:2)
Plant seeds? PLANT SEEDS?
You mean like the original plant seed experiments on the Space Shuttle in the 1980's? You mean like the plant seed experiments we constantly hear about going on on the ISS? WTF does a military shuttle need to do plant seed experiments for? Haven't we done them all yet?
Someone with a relevant degree please explain to me why plant seed experiments would be important to the US military?
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The use of the Falcon Heavy and statements like that suggest that it's going into a high orbit, or an orbit with a high apogee anyway. That's a very different radiation environment than the ISS. It's possible they're testing some kind of shielding, just extending low orbit exper