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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 09 2016, @09:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the endorsed-by-LeeLoo dept.

The Air Force's secretive Boeing X-37B spaceplane could be used to evacuate astronauts from the International Space Station in case of an emergency:

The United States Air Force's mysterious X-37B space plane would make a nice medical-evacuation vehicle for the International Space Station (ISS), some researchers say. The orbiting lab hasn't had a suitable astronaut ambulance since the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet back in 2011, said former astronaut Stephen Robinson, who flew on four shuttle missions and currently chairs the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at the University of California, Davis.

[...] Halberg said that an effective astronaut taxi should, among other things, be able to stay at the ISS for two years or more at a stretch; be capable of getting people back to Earth rapidly, within three hours or so; impose minimal G-loads on occupants; have the ability to land close to a hospital; and allow patients to lie in a supine position. These requirements all point to a space plane rather than a capsule, Halberg said — meaning SpaceX's Dragon capsule and Boeing's CST-100 capsule, which are scheduled to start flying NASA astronauts to and from the ISS within the next year or two, wouldn't make the grade as ambulances.

[...] The astronaut-ambulance X-37B would be a bit different than the version that's currently zipping around Earth on its latest mystery mission. For starters, the proposed new variant would feature a pilot, as a backup for the autonomous system that currently operates the space plane, Halberg said. (There would still be no windows, though; the pilot would be flying a real-time simulator, without the need to see outside.) The X-37B's payload bay would also be enlarged, from 88 cubic feet (2.5 cubic meters) to 147 feet (4.2 cubic m), to accommodate the pilot and two other people — the patient and a "crew medical officer." Furthermore, the medevac version would also use nontoxic fuel, as opposed to the currently employed propellant mix of nitrogen tetroxide and monomethyl hydrazine, Halberg said.

Robinson said he envisions the X-37B launching in an uncrewed state toward the ISS, perhaps loaded up with cargo. The vehicle would then stay at the orbiting lab for long stretches, ready to take sick or wounded astronauts down if needed. (No such emergency evacuations have yet been necessary in the 16 years that astronauts have lived aboard the ISS. The $100 billion orbiting lab is currently funded through 2024.)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @01:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @01:48PM (#425111)

    I think X37C has been in the works for some time now. That's basically what the article is talking about.