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from the spy-vs-spy-or-who-watches-the-satellite-watchers? dept.
CNN's Amanda Jackson reports:
The Air Force's unmanned aircraft, X-37B, landed successfully Sunday morning at NASA's Kennedy Space Center -- but it didn't come down quietly.
The space plane sent a sonic boom that rattled east-central Florida before 8 a.m., waking residents from their weekend slumber.
[...] The X-37B, which looks like a small plane, made history by landing for the first time in Florida instead of California. It also set the on-orbit endurance record at 718 days, or almost two years.
Speculation on it's role or mission includes: "whether the U.S. has deployed a space-trotting spy vehicle or weapons platform for taking down satellites." http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413046,00.asp
Additional coverage:
* "Air Force's X-37B Space Plane Lands in Florida After Record-Breaking Secret Mission" http://www.space.com/36420-x-37b-space-plane-secret-mission-florida-landing.html
Background:
* Secret Missions of the X-37B https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7qgZKh5X0U
* US Air Force's Secretive X-37B Space Plane (Infographic) http://www.space.com/75-x-37b-spaceplane.html
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37
* Shenlong Space Plane: China's Answer To U.S. X-37B Drone? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/10/shenlong-space-plane-china_n_2110084.html
* X-37B Likely Spying on China's Space Station https://www.defensetech.org/2012/01/06/x-37b-likely-spying-on-chinas-space-station/
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 08 2017, @09:04AM (2 children)
If NASA can track all that space debris using radar. Why would not anyone be able to track this machine? thus no secret.
It would likely emit radio energy and a heat signature.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday May 08 2017, @12:22PM
I think the secret part is not where it was, but what it did there.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),- on Monday May 08 2017, @01:50PM
Mike Colleta https://www.qrz.com/db/KM0MMM/ [qrz.com] appears to have tracked it using a home-made yagi with the now defunct "space fence"
https://gigaom.com/2013/08/15/tracking-the-international-space-station-with-metal-coat-hangers/ [gigaom.com]
His now defunct website: https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20131129085252/http://www.satwatch.org:80/ [archive.org]
https://newrepublic.com/article/114112/anonymouth-linguistic-tool-might-have-helped-jk-rowling