USAF's Robotic X-37B Orbiter Launched For Test Flight 145
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt: "The United States Air Force's novel robotic X-37B space plane is tucked inside the bulbous nose cone of an unmanned rocket that blasted off Thursday from Florida on a mission shrouded in secrecy. ... The unmanned military Orbital Test Vehicle 1 (OTV-1) — also known as the X-37B — lifted off at 7:52 pm EDT atop an Atlas 5 rocket on a mission that is expected to take months testing new spacecraft technologies. ... Key objectives of the space plane's first flight include demonstration and validation of guidance, navigation, and control systems – including a 'do-it-itself' autonomous re-entry and landing at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base with neighboring Edwards Air Force Base as a backup."
Re:Wasn't the Buran autonomous...? (Score:3, Funny)
Welcome to Yesterday (Score:2, Funny)
The purpose of the X-37 is for several things.
* Spy satellite recapture.
* Spy satellite de-orbit (killing).
* Rapid satellite deployment.
* As a communications platform of Network Centric Ops.
* Look-e-looing.
x
Re:Wasn't the Buran autonomous...? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Space without astronauts (Score:2, Funny)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_921-2 [wikipedia.org]
(China plans a space station for 2012)
Re:Anywhere on earth in 2 hours (Score:5, Funny)
Yup. There is a foreign submarine bearing a nuclear bomb armed missile or three, off your coast right now...
My country doesn't have a coast, you insensitive clod!
Re:Anywhere on earth in 2 hours (Score:1, Funny)
Exactly. The scenario plays out like this:
U.S.: What a nice satellite you've got there, it'd be a shame if anything happened to it.
Them: What satellite? (It's a spy satellite, so they're not going to admit anything of course.)
U.S.: Well, we have other plans for that orbit. And we know it's there. So you should... You know...
Them: Nyuh uh...
U.S.: *Yoink!*
U.S.: Yeah, you were right. There wasn't a satellite there. My bad.