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."
Wasn't the Buran autonomous...? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wasn't the Buran autonomous...? (Score:5, Informative)
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Aluminum doesn't rust. It corrodes.
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Aluminum doesn't rust. It corrodes.
Not exactly - aluminium corrodes briefly, then stops, because the oxide forms a layer protecting the metal below (unless mercury is involved). This is a big difference from iron/steel, where the oxide doesn't form a protective layer.
Re:Wasn't the Buran autonomous...? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wasn't the Buran autonomous...? (Score:5, Informative)
The former one was used for atmospherical tests, i.e. it had mounted 4 jet engines (from SU-27) and could take-off and land autonomously.
Out of 25 flights, 14 were completely autonomous including landing.
Last weekend we went to see OK-GLI locate in Speyer in Germany. Photos can be seen here:
on picasa [google.com]
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Re:Wasn't the Buran autonomous...? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wasn't the Buran autonomous...? (Score:5, Informative)
It was no coincidence that the Buran looks exactly like the Space Shuttle. It was a duplicate copy.
Actually it was not. The two looked similar because at the time there were only so many ways to build an orbiter, but on the technical level they are pretty fundamentally different. The most important difference is that the Space Shuttle is basically its own rocket, while Buran only had small engines for maneuvering, while launch was done by an Energia booster. Since it did not have to be built around a big engine, Buran is completely different structurally.
As a result, the Buran had a greater payload capacity (theoretical, as it was never tested with a payload) and a better glide number, but you needed a big rocket (theoretically reusable) every time you wanted to launch it. In other words, two fundamentally different approaches to the same technical problem.
Re:Wasn't the Buran autonomous...? (Score:4, Insightful)
While much of the internal and mission design requirements [wikipedia.org] where different, it's clear that they took the external shape of the Shuttle and modeled it very, very closely. Yes, there are only a couple of ways you can make a hypersonic fuselage of a certain size, but the Russians could have used several other design complexes (for example, the 'V' tail configuration of the XB-37) instead of looking exactly like the Shuttle.
The fact that the Russians repurposed the Buran-Mir docking collar to fit the shuttles also indicates a high degree of structural similarity.
Did they steal the data or just used the fact that the US had done extensive tests on 'that' configuration and thus not re inventing the wheel would gain time and save money? Who knows?
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Is autonomous tech really that difficult now? At the very least couldn't it fall back to remote control? I could swear the Sovs did some work like this back in the 70s.
Strictly speaking, an artillery shell is autonomous. How impressive the automation is depends on how adaptive it is.
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Strictly speaking, an artillery shell is autonomous. How impressive the automation is depends on how adaptive it is.
Autonomous literally mean "self governing". Strictly speaking an artillery shell is ballistic, it is not autonomous since it is in no way "self governing".
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No, it's not all that difficult now. However, it's not at the state where you can just hand over a check to the dealer and happily drive it off the lot either.
Seriously, when you're talking hardware/systems of this complexity, even though the basic concepts are all worked out, you still need to test the specific implementation.
Air Force testing explosive space modulators? (Score:1)
Marvin the Martian: "At last, after two thousand years of research, the illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator. At last..."
Marvin the Martian: "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"
Space without astronauts (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the space shuttle we lost, OK at 1/4 scale, but without the triple redundancy because it doesn't have to carry people. It can do the missions.
The future of space, at least in the near term, doesn't look so great for astronauts.
I wonder if it would scale up to shuttle size?
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Wow.. it's really sad to see the great Bruce Perens spreading "OMG human spaceflight is ending" FUD.
The gap is unfortunate, but its a product of the previous administration, not a choice of the current one. The retirement date for the shuttle? An overdue decision finally made in 2003. The continual redesign of Ares 1 and the Orion capsule? Thank you Mr Griffin. If the simple safe soon replacement vehicle for the shuttle had been funded back in 2003 when it was supposed to be, and not co-opted for Apoll
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I agree with just about everything in parent post except I have one quibble:
Close the gap by engaging *multiple* commercial providers. So if one vehicle fails, or retires, NASA can keep flying on another. There will never be a gap again. Basically what they should have done back in 2003 but without the cost plus pork.
This should have been started at least 10 years earlier, in 1993, when the failures of the Space Shuttle to meet its original design goals were obvious. My guess as to the cause of the delay is that it takes decades for enough bureaucrats who pinned their careers to a single technology to either retire, or get themselves so far up the ladder that they would not be affected by criticism of their earlier actions.
We still have a lot
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Re:Space without astronauts (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Space without astronauts (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, there is no way to remotely deploy the landing gear on the shuttle. That is, unless it has been rigged for unmanned flight - known as RCO (Remote Controlled Orbiter) mode - beforehand, using the so called IFM (In-Flight Maintenance)cable. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-3XX#Remote_Control_Orbiter [wikipedia.org]
This wasn't developed until after the Columbia accident. So yes, the Soviets with their unmanned Buran flight were first.
The Reason for not letting the computer control the landing gear deployment is simple: It's a one-way procedure. Once deployed, you cannot retract the gear and close the orbiter's underside - that can only take place on the ground. So, if a computer glitch would deploy the gear before or during the "hot" phase during reentry, there'd be no way to return the craft in one piece, with fatal consequences for the crew if it happened at a point where (re)docking with the ISS and waiting for a rescue shuttle is no longer an option.
You know, folks, sometimes having a human in control isn't all that bad.
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i can understand the chute, but no hydraulics on the gear?
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I'm guessing here, but I suspect that the difficulty of keeping the hydraulic fluid from freezing, coupled with the hydraulics itself made for too much weight/complexity to the system, so they decided on the deploy-once option.
It's not as if there will be multiple takeoffs and landings between servicing, the system is designed around one takeoff, one landing, service, rinse, and repeat.
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It might also have to do with the difficulty of ensuring that the thermal shield was still perfect after the gear cycled. If operating the gear in orbit is likely to (at least partially) compromise your thermal protection (because you can't be sure it will close perfectly without gaps and without damaging the thermal tiles on the cover) why build in that ability?
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the question seems backwards. Why would you want retractable gear?
you are definitely only going to land once - so you definitely don't need to retract the gear during a mission.
why would you waste any weight on something you definitely don't need?
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Hydraulics have weight, take up space, and add complexity. They are best reserved for things that actually need them. Given that there was no credible case where the ability to retract the landing gear would actually help, that capability was left out.
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The Reason for not letting the computer control the landing gear deployment is simple: It's a one-way procedure.
I doubt the deployement of the landing gear is the only one-way procedure of re-entry.
I doubt that a human pilot is less susceptible to glitches that a redundant array of 5 (IIRC) computer systems.
You know, folks, sometimes having a human in control isn't all that bad.
You always have the programmer in control. A computer never controls or decide anything. It just follows procedures. Humans are bad at that. In Feynmann's book he tells how the engineers were worried about this human command, exactly because it could fail if deployed at the wrong timing.
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But backups are good, too. I distinctly remember a television interview with the commander of the first shuttle test flight in which he went over all the things that happen during a landing. (I remember the interview but not the program. It was so long ago, I think it was "Donahue".)
One thing he pointed out was that upon landing, if the sensors show imminent touchdown (that is, after the nose has started to drop to the tarmac) and
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It doesn't need to scale up that large. The Space Shuttle has a lot of cargo bay plus capacity for up to 7 people for long on-orbit times. What we need at the moment is an Earth->Station->Earth space taxi. Double the size of the X-33 and add 24 hours of life support capacity for 2-3 passengers and you're rocking.
The key thing is to keep going. Actually launching some hardware is an amazing breakthrough given the history of developing spacecraft in the last 20 years or so for the US. Unbelievable
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I agree, this is fantastic. After Obama's cancellation of our space program....
NOTE: Is anyone else sick, tired and disgusted about the people who disagree that cancellation is what he has done? As I explained to my kids: he says he wants to send a ship to a asteroid, and another to mars; however, he canceled the heavy lifter rocket that would have made either mission possible; What he has actually done is given just enough money to heavy lifter development so that he can deny shutting it down (800 million
Re:Space without astronauts (Score:5, Insightful)
Constellation wasn't taking astronauts anywhere. It was never going to be built and even if it arrived gift wrapped it would have cost so much that NASA would have to cancel it immediately. The entire thing was designed for a budget that NASA never had. It really was warmed over Apollo, but without the Apollo sized budget.
Hopefully this time NASA will develop a heavy lift vehicle that is actually affordable, or learn to go beyond LEO without it.
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I'm of very mixed feelings on the Constellation cancellation. On one hand, I thought that Constellation was a big loser of a program. Expendable solid rockets? Apollo style capsules? We need cheap access to space, not more aerospace contractor welfare. On the other hand, not having a manned space program sucks pretty badly too. As you said, if Obama cancelled the NASA boondoggle knowing that the Air Force had something better coming along, I would feel much better.
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Are you saying that there is something wrong with Apollo-style capsules? Try telling that to the Soviets.
The reason we lost seven astronauts back in the '80s was precisely because the Shuttle wasn't an Apollo-style capsule. When you put the crew vehicle beside the rockets, instead of above them, you remove a lot of important emergency abort capability.
See that little pointy thing on top of an Apollo Saturn V stack? That's a little rocket that can fly the capsule away from the rest of the rocket if there i
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The problem with all of the Apollo and Shuttle era technologies that they don't scale. We're never going colonize anywhere sending six people at a time.
If we define the problem as building a spacecraft capable of transporting 1000 people to Mars with equipment to support them for 10 years, and that it should be able to make this journey four times a year for the next 50 years, you would have to come up with a solution that is based on fundamentally different principles.
The first powered aircraft that where
Re:Space without astronauts (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama did public space flight. It will not be missed. Our dear "socialist" leader also dumped a pile of money into private space flight. Obama didn't kill space flight. He killed a state welfare program and at the same time gave a boost to the people doing real innovative R&D in manned and unmanned lift vehicles in the private sector. This was long LONG over due. Having the US government design and fund a fucking spaceship by committee and legislation makes about as much sense as the US government designing by fucking committee and legislation cars. It is a really dumb idea and Obama did us a favor by killing it. NASA can now focus on stuff that the private sector can't do, namely, raw science. I'm not against NASA, I just want to see them fretting over stuff like how to detect life on another planet or the arcane working of some exotic stellar mass. Stuff that I want commercialized and brought to the public at large on the other hand needs to be kicked off to private industry ASAP.
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One thing that bothers me though is the testing facilities not being up yo what NASA already has for manned flight. This where private industry will cut corners until enough space tourists die and end up being more of the same. I guess we shall see if this is a good idea or not. All I'm saying is a least let NASA do some of the testing because they already have the equipment.
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Stuff that I want commercialized and brought to the public at large on the other hand needs to be kicked off to private industry ASAP.
What stuff? The Delta and Atlas are already commercialized, but practically no one wants to use them other than the government. Boeing and Lockheed have already stated that they are only willing to bring those rockets up to man-rated status if they are given a normal cost-plus contract to do so because they don't believe there is a business justification for it otherwise. They don't think that NASA or Bigelow are stable enough customers to risk any money for.
In other words, these companies that Obama is dum
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I think the only thing we disagree about is the need for man rated heavy lifting to be done by the government. Frankly, I am pretty content with what we have. I want money tossed out to private industry simply because it is going to take some innovation to make LEO and beyond worthwhile for humans. NASA isn't going to be that innovator and we frankly don't need a heavy man rated lifter like the shuttle.
Even for stuff that was previously "human only" like satellite repairs is easier to farm off to drones
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i wonder whats more cost effective, multiple launches with returnable objects, or one big launch with non-returnable parts.
basically, what i am thinking is this. Get a "cargo" module going thats basically a habitat for astronauts, then launch the actual payload and work crew as separate launches. Once the cargo is up there, unless it has a badly decaying orbit, it can wait for the work crew to get up and do their thing.
heck, if the module was transferable, one could maybe even get a safety aspect out of it,
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I don't believe this is the correct perspective.
The military has long desired sub-orbital and low orbital satellite capability. Right now, orbital patterns are well known which means its fairly easy to obstruct view during an orbital pass. Moving a satellite requires using precious fuel and analysis to ensure you're not placing it into a path of orbital debris or other objects. And even still, the changes in time allowed by changing its orbit is generally not all that considerable from what I understand.
Ent
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Can you construct a compelling reason that this vehicle, rather than its payload, should loiter in space on a military mission?
Because the military has repeatedly stated they desire such ability since the shuttle's inception for the reasons I stated. And the fact is, the vehicle can loiter for something like 30-day missions; based on what I read. This is, of course, not to say the can't or wont use it to insert additional objects into space for yet additional missions which require yet additional loiter time.
You also bring up an excellent point about being able to drop off and/or bring back objects, which has also been a long term
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The future of space, at least in the near term, doesn't look so great for astronauts.
If you haven't seen it already, I'd definitely suggest reading through this piece by aerospace engineer Rand Simberg (of transterrestrial.com [transterrestrial.com]) over at the NRO, titled, "Obama's Space Program: More Conservative than Bush's -- America has never had a space policy more visionary or more friendly to private enterprise." Of course, the National Review has plenty of issues, but the piece itself is quite well-written and a strong defense of the new plan for NASA:
http://article.nationalreview.com/432073/obamas-spac [nationalreview.com]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_921-2 [wikipedia.org]
(China plans a space station for 2012)
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
Better weapons than nukes... (Score:3, Interesting)
...telephone poles and crowbars from orbit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment)
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/x37b_secret_launch_options/
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The cost to bring them to orbit in the first place, and then to de-orbit them (in order to allow them to fall on target) is pretty high. Also, this isn't a "surgical strike" capability as the weapon can not "see" the target or communicate too well while falling at multiple times the sound speed.
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autonomous smelters that can grab asteroids and turn them into ammo?
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That's only effective when you need to build some million crowbars, as sending probes anywhere but Low Earth Orbit is very very expensive (and an autonomous smelter would by necessity be huge).
I think I heard this one before. (Score:2)
In other words, they're testing a Buran.
podbay (Score:3, Interesting)
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As per above AC post;
"* Spy satellite recapture. ... this is one of its likely roles. It can bring back US assets for service and relaunch; repair or service US assets via spacewalk; launch assets (but not the big spy sats); observe, jam or destroy enemy assets - and all this without any overfly of 'enemy' territory if in polar orbits. It can also do surveilance and launch
* Spy satellite de-orbit (killing).
* Rapid satellite deployment.
* As a communications platform of Network Centric Ops.
* Look-e-looing."
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Nice!
The problem overall with depriving someone of a satellite on the sly is after three or so uses of any method, it's not sly any more. Nothing scales up economically for repeat use, because any sudden rash of satellite failures would have their deployer thinking it can't be coincidence to lose that many that quickly.
Ergo, any method used is likely to be either a one shot attack, or an overwhelming attack against all an enemy's space capability (which, whatever else it is, won't be sly) - nothing in betwe
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Well if I was building any type of military satellite I would include a self destruct or anti-tamper device.
The shuttle already had the ability to grab a satellite and showed it a few times with US ones. If you any classified type of device in orbit and you saw a US anything getting close just set it with a proximity / time fuse. Boom..
I am sorry there must have been a fault in that. We had no idea that you would have your shuttle close to it! And why was that BTW?
So that is probably not it's mission.
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It might be worth the risk if you think you have a chance but since it is simple to make it impossible I would bet every nation does it.
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My thoughts would be to bring our own back. If you harden a satellite as defense against anti-sat weapons, I suspect it might have the unwanted effect of letting critical bits survive re-entry when it does leave orbit.
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The bay is about the size of a coffin, which makes it too small to bring back spy satellites. Hard for me to imagine what they're going to do with it beyond use it as a test bed to develop something bigger.
What's with the fairing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone know what the panels lining the rocket fairing are for?
http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/scitech/2009/10/22/nasas-secret-space-plane-nears-maiden-voyage?slide=4
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A variety of things... Insulation (the fairing will get quite hot during ascent) and acoustic dampening (the fairing will vibrate like a drum during ascent as will the payload) being the key ones.
What is it for? (Score:2)
- High Tech ASAT machine: ASAT tech (ballistic/laser) weapons mounted in the cargo bay. Makes sense except, why do you need it to come back down... cost of laser perhaps?
- Satellite Stealer: Go up, grab enemy satellite, bring it back down. Deprives enemy of the satellite, and lets you figure out how it works so you can perhaps destroy/disable others like it?
- Spe
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1) Surreptitiously toss male and female 'astronauts' into space without the blinding glare of NASA publicity. Amateur video to follow.
2) Deorbit and buzz Washington DC, just like every fighter jockey that's dealt with government bureaucracy has always wanted to do.
3) Our space penis is bigger than your space penis.
4) $$$$
5) Profit.
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It's humbling to realize I'm no better qualified to be an 'astronaut' than I am to be an astronaut.
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I haven't seen anybody else mention it in this thread, but there was a really interesting pre-launch teleconference with Air Force Deputy Under Secretary for Space Programs (and former astronaut) Gary Payton. Payton gave quite a few details about the program I hadn't seen elsewhere, giving additional insight into the program's purpose and future plans. I've pasted a few highlights below:
http://www.dodlive.mil/index.php/tag/gary-payton/ [dodlive.mil]
http://www.defense.gov/Blog_files/Blog_assets/PaytonX-37.pdf [defense.gov]
Question: Mark Matthews with the Orlando Sentinel. ... ...
Two quick questions. If the tests are successful is the Air Force looking to be able to build more of these planes? And what do you say to concerns about how this could lead to the increased weaponization of space?
Mr. Payton: We do have a second tail number on contract. Currently we're looking at a 2011 launch for that second tail number. That assumes everything goes properly as predicted on this first flight. And truthfully, I don't know how this could be called wedaponizatino of space. It's just an updated version of the space shuttle kind of activities in space. We, the Air Force, have a suite of military missions in space and this new vehicle could potentially help us do those missions better.
Question: Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor.
I guess I would just wonder if you could explain a little bit more about what the flight will test and clarify one thing. Is there not going to be a specific payload on it this time, or is there going to be and you can't tell us what it's going to be? Can you give us some sense of it? There seems to be a lot of mystery around the flight and I'm not sure if that's intended or not.
Mr. Payton: Like in many of our space launches, not all of them but many of them, the actual on-orbit activities we do classify. So we're doing that in this case for the actual experimental payloads that are on orbit with the X37. But again, our top priority is demonstrating the vehicle itself with its autonomous flight control systems, new generation of silica tile, and a wealth of other new technologies that are sort of one generation beyond the shuttle.
Question: It could capture a spacecraft that's already on orbit and bring it down for servicing or what have you?
Mr. Payton: Not on this flight. Again, this flight's intend is the experiments themselves, both during ascent, during entry, and on orbit. But there's no arm on this one.
Question: A quick follow-up on in-orbit capability. Do you have, what kind of props on this thing? I know you can get up to like 500 nautical miles, something like that. Is there any expectation to do some orbit maneuvering of this vehicle to different altitudes? ...
Mr. Payton: Just the way we handle satellites in general. We would, and like we handle low earth orbit satellites. We move them a little bit with their own on-board propulsion system.
You're starting to touch on the notion of using a winged vehicle to really change the inclination of the orbit by sort of dipping into the top of the atmosphere and turning and then bouncing back up off the top of the atmosphere. You need a very very good, very very high. Again, hypersonic lift over drag, in order for that to be beneficial. This bird does not have that high hypersonic lift over drag ratio that you would need to do that kind of maneuver.
Sorry, I didn't intend to give a lecture on Aero 562.
Question: Air Force Magazine.
You talked before about how this could handle a small sized satellite. In more lay person's terms, what does that mean? Is the payload large enough to hold like a Volkswagen Beetle or an SUV? Can you give us some idea there?
Mr. Payton: You know our ORS program, Operation Responsive Space?
Question: Yes.
Mr. Payton: Maybe a couple of satellites that are a few hundred kilograms each.
Question: Aviation Week. ...
Can I just confirm something? You said that the second vehicle may be ready to launch before the first vehicle is back from it's -- This is not a short hop. This is a long journey, a planned long flight.
Mr. Payton: Right. We have a maximum of 270 days on orbit with this bird. Again, we don't want to launch the second one until we've learned everything we can from the first one. So we will keep the second one on the ground until the first one comes home.
Again, that may be, it won't be any more than 270 days but again, it all depends on the progress of the on-orbit experiments, then we'll make a conscious decision on the success of those on-orbit experiments before we bring it home.
Question: Flight International. ...
Given the expense of going through this reusable vehicle, what type of interest is there in the Air Force in particular of bringing back payloads as opposed to just dropping them off?
Mr. Payton: The advantage of this vehicle is that you can take something up that's new, you haven't ever flown it before, it's new technology, and operate it on orbit, then bring it back and inspect it. Kind of a truck mode. You take it up and bring it back all in the same flight over the course of weeks or months. Shuttle has a limit of I believe 16 days on orbit. This bird can go a lot longer than 16 days.
Question: Air Force Magazine. ...
Mr. Payton, what are the best adjectives to use to describe this mission? Is it revolutionary? How should we describe it?
Mr. Payton: I don't know. I'm an engineer, not an English major. I would say that, again, if these technologies on the vehicle prove to be as good as we currently estimate, it will make our space launch, our access to space more responsive, perhaps cheaper, and again, push us in the vector toward being able to react to warfighter needs more quickly.
Question: Turner Britton.
This is probably a dumb question. I guess I just don't really get the final intent of the mission you're looking for here. An Atlas 5 launch costs $200 million or something. So I can't really figure out why you would want to take something up to orbit, test it, and bring it down, when you can kind of simulate all those things on the ground. The only thing that really makes sense to me is the ability to go up and get a spacecraft, maybe one that's failed, bring it down, fix it, or see what went wrong and put it back up there. Am I on the right track there?
Mr. Payton: Project a spacecraft or new technology that we haven't flown before and we want to expose it to that space environment and test again, not the X37, in the future not the X37 itself, but the stuff it carries. Test that new technology on orbit in the real world and then bring it back and inspect it. That's one of the big advantages this bird offers. And you get to expose that new technology for a long time on orbit. Again, not just a week or two weeks on orbit, but for a long time.
Question: Where does the reusability help you there? You could preempt and get the facing off expendably, couldn't you?
I'm not sure where you get the benefit of reusability if you're going to be having to launch on an expendable vehicle.
Mr. Payton: Again, the access, the earth to orbit launch, I would love to have a higher flight rate of Deltas and Atlases. It would make each one less expensive. But again, the reusability is you get to bring that payload back home and again you have to launch it again to be sure, which could be launched into a different inclination and altitude on subsequent launches.
Reusability is beneficial in two regards. One is sort of total mass to low earth orbit, where you've got a large flight rate for a large number of pounds to low earth orbit over the course of a year. And I learned this back on X33 and X34, the nation doesn't really have enough mass to low earth orbit to justify that. But when you're talking about a surge -- or another way to justify reusability is in a surge mode where you've got to deploy a lot of things rapidly. And that's where reusability benefits in a surge mode. Again, in that ORS one of the missions of ORS is a surge or a replenishment capability.
A Surge? (Score:2, Interesting)
Large solar flare destroying a bunch of satellites, replacement needed.
Some new weapon that can destroy a large number of satellites (ground based X-ray laser or an EMP/Nuclear weapon)
Reagan's Star Wars style satellites chain. I've heard we have some advances in Fiber laser efficiency. Any other recent big advances in beam weaponry?
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And, of course, 8+3.3 > 11.2
Just sayin.
Dynasoar (Score:2)
After 50 years, dynasoar finally takes flight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasoar [wikipedia.org] Better late than never.
Re:Anywhere on earth in 2 hours (Score:5, Insightful)
The first re-usable nuclear missle :-)
X-37 is, like the shuttle, meant to soft-land and be re-used. Nuclear missles are meant to get somewhere really fast and avoid anti-ballistic missles, and blow themselves up. Not really the X-37 mission.
It's for spy satellites, among other things. Nuclear missles can get anywhere in two hours already.
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X-37 is, like the shuttle, meant to soft-land and be re-used
Not only that. Since it's unmanned space vehicle, it's designed to stay in orbit for as long as 300 days.
Which means, within that 300-day envelop, it can travel to any spot on earth in a 2-hour time frame to deliver a neuclear strike.
While existing ICBM definitely can achieve that task, they may be intercepted by anti-ICBM weapons that are already being deployed.
However, there is not that easy intercept the X-37B since it's on orbit all the time.
At least, not yet.
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Why not? Unless it has a new kind of radar stealth technology it should be somewhat easy to track since it's launch time is know and a orbit is somewhat easy to propagate.
Of course X-37B can be tracked, just like any satellite. :)
The thing is, X-37B is used as a "missile carrier", not the bomb itself.
So let's say US wants to strike Venezuela the X-37B doesn't have to go to Venezuela. It can launch or "drop" the missile over the Pacific ocean or Atlantic ocean or even over the African continent and the missile, with the help of GPS, would seek out a way to strike Venezuela thousands of miles away.
But of course the Pentagon can choose to manuever the X-37B right over Venezuela and aim the missile straight down, point blank.
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But of course the Pentagon can choose to manuever the X-37B right over Venezuela and aim the missile straight down, point blank.
Alas, orbital mechanics don't work that way. To 'drop' a bomb, the entry vehicle would have to apply thrust opposed to its orbital trajectory. This would alter the orbital trajectory until the semi-minor axis of the orbit enters the atmosphere around about where you want your warhead to go. Given the energies and velocities involved (and the need for cooling during aerobraking) this approach path tends to be pretty shallow. Consequently, you have to start your deorbit burn a fair ways out. They'll stil
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doubt that, nukes not allowed in space, don't think russia, et. al. would be too impressed if this turned out to be a nuclear payload delivery mechanism. Anyway, all that just sounds a bit cold war-ish and soooo last century. :-)
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well, reactors are a bit different than actual nukes, however I do agree it's bloody silly to keep them in LEO. For missions going elsewhere I can live with them.
Even US used nuclear power sources; voyager used RTGs iirc, although that bit more benign than actual reactors
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The Russians have had FOBS tasked ICBMs for decades, and with the history of how Russia treats arms treaties*, I'm sure they still have them. I believe it was the SS-9 and then SS-18 mod 4 that were devoted to orbiting a nuke into orbit.
The R-36orb (SS-18) carried the 869 fractional-orbit missile.
* Read a book on the Soviet and Russian Federation bio-weapons treaty compliance, a Russian researcher said that they didn't comply because they assumed the US wouldn't comply. The US had thrown out most of the bio
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well, it's far less cold than it used to be, despite the letest rattlings from russia. US and russia now sogned another agreement to get rid of some of their stockpile. I think russia and US are quite-ish happy with the current status quo.
Why shake the bees nest by creating am orbiting nuke? By doing that US basically tells the world it's not giving a damn about the treaties they agrees to and all hell will be breaking lose (russian, china, etc all putting nukes in LEO, seeling nukes to countries that shou
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I don't see the logic in this. Existing missles have a delta-V that could reach orbital velocity. That's why their boosters get re-used for civilian missions. If anyone wanted to loiter a missle in orbit, in contravention of the treaty about that, I would imagine that some of the existing MERV systems have that capability. But sitting one in orbit doesn't make it harder to shoot down when it re-enters, because regardless of how well it is stealthed it can be seen - if by no other means, when it occludes a s
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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.
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An ICBM is a suborbital rocket with a relatively huge payload capacity because it doesn't need to carry its warheads all the way up to orbital speed, and it doesn't have to waste payload mass on landing structure like heatshields and wings. You can carry a hell of a lot more tricks for dodging countermissiles on an ICBM than you can with this toy shuttle's payload bay.
Wrong. An RV (Re-entry Vehicle) comes in on a mathematically fixed path (that's why it's called a BALLISTIC MISSILE). The minor course correction ability that they have is to improve accuracy. Besides, Even SPARTAN (LIM-49A) and GBI have the range to hit the warhead bus before discharge of the warheads. Plus ICBMs don't have the energy you think they do.
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Parent post is technically correct, but I think misleading in being too literal for this level of discourse.
MIRV designs do allow a single ICBM to carry decoys of various kinds, and jamming or shielding electronics can be added to any warhead, all at a relatively cheap cost in added weight since these things are suborbital. Additionally, the last fifty miles or so of an ICBM's warhead trajectory can be made very similar to the trajectory of a smart bomb with the simple addition of some small steering surf
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Well you have many details wrong.
1. ICBMs do reach speeds not far below orbital velocities and some do look up FOBBS.
2. ICBMs do have heatsheilds.Well the RVs do anyway.
Actually the idea of using a winged system like this does have some merit and the USAF has looked into it back in the late 60s and early 70s.
In theory you could have this reach a much lower altitude than an ICBM which would give you less time where you are over the horizon so the enemy would have less time to reach.
Also this test vehical lo
More like 45 minutes max (Score:2)
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I think it has to scale to the size of the shuttle, at least the shuttle's cargo bay.
One point that people are missing, the shuttle had mission requirements to be able to deliver big satellites for the military, it also had requirements go up and retrieve satellites for the military.
Neither Orion, Ares, or a Falcon 9 with a Dragon on top can do anything about retrieving a large military satellites the size of the shuttle's cargo bay.
DoD can launch all the satellites it wants on Atlas rockets, but all they c
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I heard anywhere on earth in one hour, (conventional weapons only)unless you believe this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/world/europe/23strike.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw [nytimes.com]
Re:Anywhere on earth in 2 hours (Score:4, Insightful)
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Uhhh, the USA, France, Britain, Russia and China can already drop a nuclear bomb on anyone, anywhere on earth, within about 10 minutes.
10 minutes ??
Re:Anywhere on earth in 2 hours (Score:5, Informative)
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:5, Insightful)
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How is it going in Switzerland these days?
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"There is a foreign submarine bearing a nuclear bomb armed missile or three, off your coast right now..."
F#cking terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.
I say invade!