Air Force’s Secretive Space Plane Touches Down After 2-Year Mission, yes
a two year MISSION! We got a spaceship/plane that can fly into space, stay there for years and come back anytime we want it too. Not only that, but once up there it can fly to new positions, it doesn’t need to stay in a fixed orbit. Imagine…this thing can hop all over the place – who knows where it might turn up, certainly not the Chinese or Russians and that really makes them nervous.
The Air Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Mission 5 successfully landed at NASA’s Kennedy
Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility Oct. 27, 2019. (U.S. Air Force/Jeremy Webster)
28 Oct 2019
Military.com | By Oriana Pawlyk
The Air Force‘s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is back on the ground after completing its latest record-breaking unmanned mission in space.
The experimental, clandestine space plane landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday after more than two years in orbit, the service said in a release. This was the X-37B’s fifth space mission. Its last orbit ended in May 2017 after 718 days in space.
“The safe return of this spacecraft, after breaking its own endurance record, is the result of the innovative partnership between government and industry,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said in a statement. “The sky is no longer the limit for the Air Force and, if Congress approves, the U.S. Space Force.”
This was the second time the X-37B landed has landed at the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility. It took off for its fifth mission on Sept. 7, 2017.
While its payloads and most of its activities are classified, the Air Force said at the time that the mission would carry “the Air Force Research Laboratory Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader (ASETS-II) payload to test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipe technologies in the long-duration space environment.”
Related: Former SecAF Explains How Secret X-37 Space Plane Throws Off Enemies
The space plane “conducted on-orbit experiments for 780 days during its mission, recently breaking its own record by being in orbit for more than two years,” the release said. That brings the total number of days spent on-orbit for the X-37B to 2,865, officials said.
The last two missions have pushed the boundaries for a test vehicle, originally designed to spend up to 270 days circling the Earth.
What the X-37B does is literally a matter of rocket science. According to the service, the X-37B is exploring the practicalities and risks of “reusable space vehicle technologies” while also experimenting with space technology.
Under the purview of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the test vehicle can autonomously reenter the atmosphere and eventually land horizontally on a flight line.
“This program continues to push the envelope as the world’s only reusable space vehicle,” said Randy Walden, director of the Rapid Capabilities Office.
“With a successful landing today, the X-37B completed its longest flight to date and successfully completed all mission objectives. This mission successfully hosted Air Force Research Laboratory experiments, among others, as well as providing a ride for small satellites,” Walden said Sunday.
In July, the service’s former top civilian gave a glimpse into the space plane’s mission.
Speaking about space awareness and deterrence at the Aspen Security Forum, Heather Wilson described the vehicle as a “small version of the [NASA space] shuttle.”
It “can do an orbit that looks like an egg and, when it’s close to the Earth, it’s close enough to the atmosphere to turn where it is,” she said at the time.
“Which means our adversaries don’t know — and that happens on the far side of the Earth from our adversaries — where it’s going to come up next. And we know that that drives them nuts. And I’m really glad about that,” she added.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Military.com that Wilson’s comments on its movement may shed light on “a previously secret orbit-related capability,” and explained that the aircraft’s movement likely throws an adversary off, even if just for a short time.
“The dip into the atmosphere causes a change in the timing of when it next comes overhead. So [trackers’] predictions are off, and [they] have to search for it all over again,” McDowell said at the time.
The Air Force is preparing to launch the sixth X-37B mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, in 2020.
Fascinating stuff.
https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2019/11/a-hole-in-international-space-station.html
Also, google “Rods from God”.
Jerry Pournelle. Classical sci-fi. Right up there with A.E. Van Vogt, Robert Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Phillip K. Dick…
Poul Anderson came and spoke to my high-school English class. Class, not auditorium. A tiny classroom. Evidently he was a neighbor of the teacher and had a home in Orinda at the time (or it could have been Berkeley). In any case he was a friend of the teacher whose name escapes me.
For me meeting him was like meeting Superman.
More small world. Not quite Orinda, but close. When my army hitch was up, my first job for the summer was at a riding stable just above El Toyanal, just a few turns down Lomas Contadas from the Redwood Valley steam train.
The stable had a string of rental horses, and I used to take a dozen or so riders out on one hour trail rides in Tilden Park. Heh. On more than one occasion, we had some “interesting” interactions between the horses of various personalities and persons of various “cultural” backgrounds. It can be a come to Jesus moment when you realize that that 1500 lb. animal neither knows nor cares what brand of BS you speak.
That was the summer of 1977.
Redwood Valley Railroad–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8s6LL6GbyA
I’ve hiked all through that area and rode that miniature train when I was a kid. There used to be a railroad spur that went from the port of Oakland through a tunnel in the Oakland hills to Canyon and then on to Lafayette with another spur that went through to Walnut Creek. I hiked that line from Lafayette to the Oakland hills when a kid.
The train was used to haul redwood lumber from the Lafayette area to the port. Lafayette was once covered in redwoods, but that was long before my time. I remember the tracks though before they were torn up and the water tower that was on St. Mary’s road.
This DVD is well worth having.
https://www.amazon.com/Sacramento-Northern-Railway-Transit-Gloria/dp/B00QHRD1YC/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=sacramento+northern+railway+dvd&qid=1573086818&sr=8-1
I have the VHS version, and I think I have DVD stashed away somewhere. I originally ordered them through the Western Railway Museum. The cameras ride from San Fransisco all the way to Chico.
My mother was born and raised in Lafayette. She used to catch the train as a teenager to ride out to Concord.
Check this out. It shows the area I hiked when a kid and where the tunnel is —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PLTin_sQeo
Ordered one on eBay. Thanks.
Forgot to add, according to Google Earth, the stable is still there and you can see it from street view. When I was there, between the rental heard, all the horses boarded in stalls, and more still out to pasture (including mine) there were about 100 horses there. Looks pretty empty now.
And, I must correct my failing memory. It was actually the summer before I enlisted, so that would make it 1973.