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posted by
n1
on Friday April 11 2014, @01:24AM
from the public-relations-tools-for-secret-missions dept.
from the public-relations-tools-for-secret-missions dept.
The Air Force has had a robotic spacecraft in orbit for a year and a half, speculation predicts a testbed for spying apparatus.
Rumors abound. One of the most popular is the X-37B can sneak up and eavesdrop on other satellites. The idea does have appeal, but skeptics point out the U.S. already has other smaller, harder to track satellites to do just that.
Can anyone think of better ideas for what they could be using this technology for, or is it just a reusable satellite?
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What is the X-37B Doing Up There?
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Logicians have but ill defined
As rational the human kind.
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(Score: 1) by bill_mcgonigle on Friday April 11 2014, @07:10AM
this craft is exploring the possibilities of an orbiting drone.
Close, I think, but I suspect it's for drone operators. Latency is still a problem for remote drone operations for tasks much more difficult than blowing up schools with brown children in them.
They are making a human-flight version of the X-37B - now then, put it up in a Molniya orbit [wikipedia.org] over a target area, and get enough hang time to operate drones with sub-second latency for long enough for the conflict to no longer matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @07:53PM
So if you want low latency you'd use something like Iridium instead.