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 gained’t say. And the veil of secrecy over the X-37B continues forward of its launch Sunday at 8:14 p.m. Japanese on its seventh mission. However this time there are some clues that not less than one thing is totally 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 prior to now. That’s led to hypothesis that the mission can be in a a lot greater orbit, which seems to be the case in response to latest paperwork. SpaceX gained the $130 million contract for the launch in 2018.
Nonetheless, what it’d do in that greater orbit stays unknown.
The mission has “a variety of take a look at and experimentation targets,” is the Pentagon’s official assertion. “These exams embody 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 is going to be maintaining a tally of different satellites, probably looking ahead 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 out to be a key mission of the U.S. House Power. “Our area techniques are threatened by quite a lot of rising antisatellite capabilities, and the joint power is threatened by more and more subtle adversary space-based techniques meant to focus on the joint power,” Gen. Probability Saltzman, the House Power’s chief of area operations, stated in a assertion to Congress earlier this yr.
At the very least one a part of the mission is understood. The car will “expose plant seeds to the cruel radiation setting of long-duration spaceflight” in an experiment for NASA. Prior to now, the Pentagon has additionally used the X-37B to check a few of its innovative applied sciences, together with a small photo voltaic panel designed to rework photo voltaic power into microwaves, a expertise that sooner or later might permit power 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 wonderful it’s and leading edge, however won’t present any data about it,” stated Brian Weeden, the director of program planning on the Safe World Basis, a assume tank.
A lot of the hypothesis in regards to the car might be improper, he stated. For now, its repute is tied primarily to “its mystique,” he stated, although it appears clear that “it’s doing one thing that the Pentagon feels is essential.”
That stated, “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 car applied sciences (similar to steerage and thermal safety) and on-orbit testing of latest sensor applied sciences and satellite tv for pc {hardware} for danger discount,” in response to Safe World.
That has not stopped different nations, significantly China, from pointing to the X-37B for example of the U.S. weaponizing area. “They’ll’t cease speaking about this factor as a weapon, and the image of American hegemony in area,” Weeden stated.
China additionally has a secretive reusable spaceplane, the Shenlong, which has flown two missions up to now. The final one touched down in Could after spending 276 days in orbit. Just like the X-37B, it’s extremely secretive, and no photographs of it have been launched publicly. But it surely does look like impressed by its American cousin, Weeden stated. The Chinese language considering is that “if the People assume it’s vital, then possibly we should always make investments on this,” Weeden stated.
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 realize all kinds of information about how totally different elements fare in area for prolonged durations.
“It has been a outstanding take a look at mattress and experimentation car for a few years,” Gen. David Thompson, the House Power’s vice chief of area operations, stated throughout a discussion board earlier this yr. “I might inform you, you’re solely starting to see among the thrilling issues that we have now deliberate for the X-37.”