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posted by cmn32480 on Monday October 28 2019, @10:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the sooper-secret-space-shuttle dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

[...] An unmanned X-37B space plane landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, wrapping up a record 780 days in orbit, the US Air Force said Sunday. The mission breaks the mysterious plane's own record by spending more than two years in space.

[...] Altogether, the program, which has at least two of the reusable planes, has spent 2,865 days in space over the course of five missions, the Air Force said. The fifth mission launched on Sept. 7, 2017.

The Boeing-built space planes resemble a smaller version of NASA's old space shuttles and have a similar re-entry trajectory that uses a runway, like the old shuttles. They feature a small payload bay and use a deployable solar array for power.

The 11,000-pound vehicle is about 29 feet long with a wingspan of just under 15 feet and was designed to stay in orbit for 270 days. It was originally a NASA program, with roots in the space agency's lifting-body research, that ran from 1999 to 2004. The X-37B is designed to serve as a platform for experiments and to offer insights on transporting satellite sensors and other equipment to and from space.

[ed: Nuked dead link on "originally a NASA program' —chromas]


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday October 29 2019, @12:24AM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday October 29 2019, @12:24AM (#913046) Journal

    The X-37B is designed to serve as a platform for experiments and to offer insights on transporting satellite sensors and other equipment to and from space.

    The X-37B was designed to capture enemy spacecraft/satellites, like that scene in You Only Live Twice.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 29 2019, @12:58AM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday October 29 2019, @12:58AM (#913066)

    Maybe not far off - it could be autonomously launching and recapturing cooperative satellites, attempting recapture from various orbital configurations, etc.

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    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday October 29 2019, @01:41AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday October 29 2019, @01:41AM (#913077) Journal

      They started out with:

      http://spaceflight101.com/spacecraft/x-37b-otv/ [spaceflight101.com]

      X-37B is powered by a single Aerojet engine using storable propellants. The Main Propulsion System provides a total thrust of about 700N and X-37B’s propulsion system is capable of providing a total delta-V of nearly 3.1km/s over the course of a mission. Power generation is accomplished with a solar array consisting of Gallium Arsenide solar cells. Also part of the power system are lithium-ion batteries.

      And presumably have even more delta-V budget from ion engines or Hall Effect thrusters (tested on OTV-4).

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