X-37B Headed Deeper Into Space With Falcon Heavy Rocket's Help
The countdown is on for the next mission of the U.S. Space Force's secretive X-37B spaceplane. While all of the X-37B's missions so far have been highly intriguing, to say the least, the next one — the seventh — will involve some particular novelties. Not only will it explore what the Space Force describes as "new orbital regimes," but the reusable spaceplane will ride atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful commercial rocket operational anywhere in the world, with the potential to put it into much higher orbit than was possible on previous missions.
The Space Force announced yesterday that X-37B Mission 7 is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on December 7, 2023. The spaceplane's first mission on a Falcon Heavy rocket will be designated USSF-52 and it will be run by the Space Force together with the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.
[...] Using the Falcon Heavy rocket comes after six previous missions that employed the medium-lift Atlas V or Falcon 9 rockets.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 11 2023, @08:51PM
The Marine Corps has historically been ready to fight anytime, anywhere, if only the Navy would give them a ride to the fight. Here we see the new "force" hitching rides to get where they need to be. Since the US Navy isn't flying into space yet, the Space Marines are reduced to waiting on a commercial bus. That's just too funny.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by crafoo on Saturday November 11 2023, @09:57PM (7 children)
Is the purpose of the space plane to mess with other nation's spy/comms satellites? our current war strategy is using our "tech offset" to integrate all battlefield sensors and weapons, autonomous or manned. Does the space plane factor into this as a denial of this ability to other nations without firing missiles at their sats?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Saturday November 11 2023, @10:19PM
It's more likely to be deploying secret spying payloads in novel orbits and at unexpected times or just opening its payload doors to poke some cameras/sensors out.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 11 2023, @11:03PM (3 children)
I imagine like most such projects, there's a large list of goals and capabilities. This likely is one of them.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 12 2023, @01:02AM
Kind of like the new B-21 stealth bomber [thedrive.com] doubling as a reconnaissance platform. Yikes.
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday November 12 2023, @03:46AM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday November 12 2023, @05:36AM
Counter that by jamming the hell out of it, blame it on solar activity.
But sat warfare will be quaint compared to...
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(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday November 12 2023, @09:07AM (1 child)
I think its main purpose is to give the Space Cadets something to do. If you look at other branches like the Air Force, this was the US Army Air Force (USAAF, and before that Air Service and Air Corps and others) until it had proven itself and created a defined role for itself, at which point it was spun out into its own service. The Space Cadets OTOH are putting the cart before the horse, lets create a new service, sweep up bits and pieces from other services, add a lot of new personnel to bulk it up a bit, and then try and figure out what they're going to do.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 12 2023, @10:23AM
They've had things to do since at least 1982 as Space Command and Air Force Space Command [wikipedia.org]. And more to do since the 2000s when other countries started blowing up satellites and starting their own Space Force equivalents. Proponents argued that spinning it out of the Air Force would keep the domain from being neglected in favor of the Air part.
It's not entirely obvious what they're doing because some of it is a secret. Tears were shed over the end of the Space Shuttle, but they've been launching the X-37B, essentially a mini-shuttle, since 2010. Over 10 entire years spent in space between 2 craft [wikipedia.org], deploying payloads, testing sensors, and who knows what else.
The branch won't be known as boring satellite managers for much longer. An inconceivable amount of money will be shoveled into it once the reverse engineering program bears fruit.
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(Score: -1, Troll) by melyan on Sunday November 12 2023, @01:32AM
Falcon Heavier.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday November 13 2023, @06:36PM (4 children)
Anyone else notice mission six was a couple days off from a Mars mission? 34 months no shit almost to the day.
The first mission was a couple days longer than a visit to Venus.
I suspect they're prepping for "longer distance" than most people seem to think.
Note you don't have to take a Venus-class craft to Venus to test it, earth orbit for the same amount of time is mostly good enough-ish. Obviously doesn't test the telecom or thermal environment but everything else is close enough.
I wonder if they plan these mission durations just to F with "those who know". Not solely talking about shitposters on an obscure forum, but other governments. Sure China, you can talk about your Mars plans, but we don't have plans, we have a built and flying craft that can go there when we want, and we orbited it over your country for 34 months just to make sure you noticed that it orbited over your head the exact number of days it would take to go to Mars.
They could do missions for "non-interesting" durations if they wanted, but no, mission 1 seems to have been a simulated Venus mission and mission 6 seems to have been a simulated Mars mission. I wonder if the other missions have a duration I don't recognize. Maybe some sort of Lagrange point mission. Wonder how long it takes to wander on over to L4. L2 is pretty nearby like a month. I don't know if anything has ever been sent to L4/L5, I suppose its "how long is a piece of string" in that you decide how much fuel you'd want to burn to get there.
I imagine a L4/L5 observation sat would have some interesting characteristics. It would be far away, which superficially would suck. On the other hand, it would be an interesting place for a nuclear deterrent or spy sat in general as we have just about nothing that could reach it quickly. Except maybe a X-37 could F with a sat out at L4/L5.
Now watch, this post (possibly me too?) will disappear, LOL.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday November 15 2023, @06:40AM (3 children)
Fun idea, but I doubt it. The long duration is probably for Earth surveillance and to have enough fuel margin to do interesting things like change orbit to approach "enemy satellites". How long even is a mission to Mars/Venus if you have sufficiently advanced technology to go direct (think: in-orbit refueling or something more exotic)? There are typical travel times but records are meant to be broken and will be relatively soon.
I think it's more plausible that a lot of what's going on in aerospace is money laundering to fund (alien) UAP crash retrieval reverse engineering unacknowledged special access programs (USAPs). Not that they need any help to go way over budget. Speaking of retrieval, they could remove a certain mass of valuable "debris" from orbit using their little spaceplane.
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(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday November 15 2023, @08:25AM (1 child)
I think it's more plausible that a lot of what's going on in aerospace is money laundering to fund (alien) UAP crash retrieval reverse engineering unacknowledged special access programs (USAPs).
The X-37B is flying gravity amplifiers?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Wednesday November 15 2023, @09:38AM
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-30-vw-18804-story.html [latimes.com]
$50,000 screwdrivers and toilets are merely a conduit for financial mass.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 15 2023, @12:34PM
Oh I think we kind of mostly agree. Its kind of like gunboat diplomacy from centuries ago, the point isn't to send a battleship into the harbor and actually shell the city, but to make the point that you can. So its quite a brag that the missions have exactly the same duration as interplanetary missions...
My guess is it would be technically easy to put a comsat / propagandasat / deterrent weapon "out there far away" and the point of those long missions is to tell those paying attention that they're not out-of-reach.