Is it a secretive Pentagon weapon? Is it stealthy? Does it sneak as much as satellites? What precisely does it do in area? And why is it up there for thus lengthy?
The Pentagon received’t say. And the veil of secrecy over the X-37B continues forward of its launch Sunday at 8:14 p.m. Jap on its seventh mission. However this time there are some clues that not less than one thing is completely different.
The drone, which flies with out anybody on board, is to be launched for the primary time on SpaceX’s highly effective Falcon Heavy, which is extra highly effective than the rockets which have launched it up to now. That’s led to hypothesis that the mission shall be in a a lot larger orbit, which seems to be the case based on latest paperwork. SpaceX received the $130 million contract for the launch in 2018.
Nonetheless, what it would do in that larger orbit stays unknown.
The mission has “a variety of take a look at and experimentation targets,” is the Pentagon’s official assertion. “These exams embrace working the reusable spaceplane in new orbital regimes, experimenting with future area area consciousness applied sciences.”
The reference about “area area consciousness” might imply that it will likely be maintaining a tally of different satellites, doubtlessly looking forward to threats. Having a greater sense of what’s going on within the vastness of area — the place adversaries’ spacecraft are and what they’re doing — has turn into a key mission of the U.S. House Power. “Our area techniques are threatened by a wide range of rising antisatellite capabilities, and the joint drive is threatened by more and more subtle adversary space-based techniques supposed to focus on the joint drive,” Gen. Probability Saltzman, the House Power’s chief of area operations, mentioned in a assertion to Congress earlier this 12 months.
A minimum of one a part of the mission is thought. The automobile will “expose plant seeds to the cruel radiation atmosphere of long-duration spaceflight” in an experiment for NASA. Previously, the Pentagon has additionally used the X-37B to check a few of its leading edge applied sciences, together with a small photo voltaic panel designed to remodel photo voltaic vitality into microwaves, a know-how that someday might permit vitality harnessed in area to be beamed again to Earth.
The Boeing constructed X-37B has additionally been used to deploy small satellites, however what these did was additionally a thriller.
“The U.S. authorities is on this bizarre place the place they brag publicly about how superb it’s and leading edge, however is not going to present any information about it,” mentioned Brian Weeden, the director of program planning on the Safe World Basis, a assume tank.
A lot of the hypothesis concerning the automobile might be mistaken, he mentioned. For now, its popularity is tied primarily to “its mystique,” he mentioned, although it appears clear that “it’s doing one thing that the Pentagon feels is essential.”
That mentioned, “it has near-zero feasibility as an orbital weapons system for attacking targets on the bottom,” Safe World says in a truth sheet about this system. In all probability, it’s used for the needs the Pentagon says it’s getting used for: “testing reusable area launch automobile applied sciences (akin to steering and thermal safety) and on-orbit testing of recent sensor applied sciences and satellite tv for pc {hardware} for danger discount,” based on Safe World.
That has not stopped different nations, significantly China, from pointing to the X-37B for instance of the U.S. weaponizing area. “They will’t cease speaking about this factor as a weapon, and the image of American hegemony in area,” Weeden mentioned.
China additionally has a secretive reusable spaceplane, the Shenlong, which has flown two missions to this point. The final one touched down in Could after spending 276 days in orbit. Just like the X-37B, it’s extremely secretive, and no images of it have been launched publicly. However it does look like impressed by its American cousin, Weeden mentioned. The Chinese language considering is that “if the People assume it’s necessary, then perhaps we should always make investments on this,” Weeden mentioned.
If Sunday’s X-37B mission is like earlier ones, the spaceplane may very well be in area for some time. Its first flight, which launched in 2010, lasted 224 days. Since then, every mission has gotten longer, and when it touched down at Cape Canaveral after its final flight in November 2022, it had been in orbit for 908 days. In all, the spaceplane has spent greater than 10 years in area, which has allowed the Pentagon to achieve all kinds of knowledge about how completely different elements fare in area for prolonged durations.
“It has been a outstanding take a look at mattress and experimentation automobile for a few years,” Gen. David Thompson, the House Power’s vice chief of area operations, mentioned throughout a discussion board earlier this 12 months. “I might inform you, you’re solely starting to see a number of the thrilling issues that we now have deliberate for the X-37.”
