Posted on 05/25/2010 8:19:41 AM PDT by Rebelbase
A group of amateur sky watchers has cracked the case of the secrecy surrounding the debut flight of the nation's first robotic spaceplane, discovering that the military craft is engaged in the development of spy satellites rather than space weapons, reveals a report by the New York Times.
The unmanned X-37B craft launched last month from Florida on its debut mission while attracting little public notice. The craft was shrouded in operational secrecy, even as civilian specialists reported that it might go on mysterious errands for up to nine months before coming back down to earth.
Pentagon leaders strongly denied that the winged plane had anything to do with space weapons during interviews and statements.
Gary E. Payton, under secretary of the Air Force for space programs, told the New York Times on Friday that the secretive effort seeks “no offensive capabilities.” He said “The program supports technology risk reduction, experimentation and operational concept development.”
Civilian specialists said that the secretive flight probably centers at least partly on testing powerful sensors for a new generation of spy satellites.
The amateur sky watchers have successfully tracked the stealthy object for the first time, uncovering clues that could back up the surveillance theory. Ted Molczan, a team member in Toronto, told the paper that the X-37B was passing over the same region on the group once ever four days, a pattern he said was a “common feature of U.S. imaging reconnaissance satellites.”
The team found during their six sightings that the craft orbits as far north as 40 degrees latitude, just below New York City. An observer in the suburbs might see the craft on a clear night as a bright star moving across the southern sky.
“This looks very, very good,” Mr. Molczan said of the identification. “We got it.”
The military spacecraft passes over many global trouble spots, such as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea.
Molczan said that the team members in Canada and South Africa made independent observations of the craft on Thursday and caught an earlier glimpse of the orbiting spaceship last month from the U.S. Weeks of sky gazing paid off as team members Kevin Fetter and Greg Roberts saw the craft from Brockville, Ontario, and Cape Town.
Molczan said the X-37B was orbiting about 225 miles high and circling the planet about once every 90 minutes.
The public is knowledgeable on a fair amount of data about the X-37B because the project started 11 years ago as a NASA program. The Air Force took over the program in 2006 and hung a cloak of secrecy over its budget and missions.
The spacecraft has a wingspan of just of 14 feet and its 29 feet long. It looks similar to a space shuttle. The X-37B’s payload bay is the size of a pickup truck bed, suggesting that it can not only expose experiments to the void of outer space but also deploy and retrieve small satellites. It can stay afloat for as long as nine months because it deploys solar panels for power, unlike the space shuttle.
Brian Weedon, a former Air Force officer now with the Secure World Foundation, told the Times that the duration of the X-37B’s initial flight would probably depend on “how well it performs in orbit.”
The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office leads the X-37B program for what it calls the “development and fielding of select Defense Department combat support and weapons systems.”
Payton, a former astronaut and senior NASA official, acknowledged the spacecraft is ultimately meant to give the U.S. new advantages on terrestrial battlefields, but denies that it represents any kind of space weaponization.
Wonder how many nudie pictures those wild and crazy techs capture when no one is looking?
No national secret too big the NYTimes won't share with our enemies.
Shrouded in secrecy, shrouded during launch!
The X-37B was originally scheduled for launch in the
payload bay of the Space Shuttle, but following the Columbia
accident, it was transferred to a Delta II 7920.
It was subsequently transferred to a shrouded configuration
on the Atlas V following concerns over the unshrouded
spacecraft's aerodynamic properties during launch.
Payload are would make handy storage for satellites from (less friendly) foreign countries. ;-)
I agree with you, but this
AIR COMMAND AND STAFF COLLEGE AIR UNIVERSITY X-37 SPACE VEHICLE: STARTING A NEW AGE IN SPACE CONTROL?
http://www.dtic.mil/srch/doc?collection=t3&id=ADA407255
linking to this http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA407255&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
was published years ago.
From Article: Molczan said the X-37B was orbiting about 225 miles high and circling the planet about once every 90 minutes
The stat above is roughly the same for the space shuttles, fyi.
...and equally guilty of breaching the security of our country are this team who shared their information....we live among imbeciles!
space shuttle http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/
other objects http://science.nasa.gov/realtime/
I don’t get what the deal is with putting weapons in space. I figure controlling the high ground is a smart tactic and we should be putting enough firepower up there to toast mecca (as an example) at will
Obamah can keep his birthplace a secret but rarely can our military and intelligence community keep a secret from the NY Times.
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