[Eala]

Why does it take such a large plane to drop a small bomb?

Is that bomb the limits of its capacity? Or were they testing other capabilities -- such as being able to deliver a bomb to a specified target, which is somewhat irrelevant to the mass of the bomb (except in its descent phase)?

[RFEngineer]

".... they testing other capabilities "

Standard flight test. Bomb separation is not a trivial thing. Bombs can hit the plane that drops them - it's happened before. That this was successful is a significant milestone. They no doubt will test multiple bombs, different types/shapes and different altitudes.

Best part about this though is that flight-test can progress at a rapid pace because there are no golden-arm test pilots to deal with........it's a flight test engineer's dream!

[tanknetter]

Is that bomb the limits of its capacity? Or were they testing other capabilities -- such as being able to deliver a bomb to a specified target, which is somewhat irrelevant to the mass of the bomb (except in its descent phase)?

People need to keep in mind that the X-45 is an "X" plane and is designed to test bleeding edge technology that will eventually, be put into production machines. Asking why it doesn't carry more bombs is roughly the equivalant of asking why Chuck Yeager's X-1 didn't carry any guns ...