Posted on 05/08/2017 10:28:21 AM PDT by blam
The US military's X-37B space plane landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, ending its record-breaking 718-day orbit with a sonic boom during its first landing in Florida.
The US Air Force has two X-37B Orbital Test Vehicles, which it calls its newest and most advanced reentry spacecraft.
At 29 feet long and with a 14-foot wingspan, the planes are about one-quarter of the size of NASA's now retired space shuttles and have a cargo bay about the size of a pick-up truck's.
The first X-37 program started in 1999, and the X-37B first flew in April 2010, returning after eight months in flight.
The next mission, launched in March 2011, was 15 months long, and the third mission in December 2012 lasted 22 months.
"Our team has been preparing for this event for several years, and I am extremely proud to see our hard work and dedication culminate in today’s safe and successful landing of the X-37B," Air Force Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, the commander of the 45th Space Wing, said in a release.
The most recent X-37B mission, launched in May 2015, brings the orbital test vehicle program to a total of 2,085 days spent in orbit.
Amateur astronomers have been able to spot the craft through telescopes and observed it at relatively low altitudes — a little less than 200 miles up, according to some, which is lower than the International Space Station.
What the X-37Bs have doing during those 2,085 days in orbit is less clear, however.
The X-37B program "performs risk reduction, experimentation and concept of operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies," the Air Force said in its release.
The Air Force has said the program is testing "advanced guidance, navigation and control, thermal protection systems, avionics, high temperature
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
It made me the mental basket case I am today. Oh, and when we hit the States the connector flight was showing Beaches. When yer number's up, it's really up. I got a lot of reading in...
And GPR/Xrays to see inside KJU’s two sats. If they need to be taken out to deep space, we’ll need proof of why we did it. Only Iran and Cuba will care, anyway.
“:^)
Hopefully it’s mining our potential enemies satellites.
One push of a button and they all disintegrate.
I’d say they all go boom but space is a vacuum.
Seems we really don't know all that much...
bkmk
Let’s just hypothetically say we DO have Rods from God.
Currently such devices are not banned by international treaty.
Should one be used, however, you can be certain that the dust would not even have settled and there would be motions at the UN to ban such a device.
It would mean that we would only have one shot at using them, so it better be a damned important target.
This would only be a concern if we actually had Rods from God, which we don’t.
I promise.
I see a stake body truck in the background. There must be sheep or goats involved. Start a rumor.
Ah, maybe it’s miniature sheep or goats.
I’ve heard meteors go ‘POP’ when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.................
Yes, and don’t call me Shirley................
What if... the UN were to contract a sudden case of titanium poisoning right before they convened to outlaw them? If we ever developed them, of course.
Not germ-proof.....poison gas proof. The shuttle (and from the pic), this spaceplane, used (I think), nitrous oxide and hydrazine for maneuvering jets. Both highly toxic. Any residual has to be bled from the tanks and vented.
They ought to make a bigger one of these that can haul people and stuff.........................
That machine must have some kind of magic gyroscope fake horizon in that instrument panel!!!!!!
Everyone knows that fake horizon thingy is much better than the real horizon. LOL
Boeing Built that!!
I heard the sonic boom in Central Florida
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