TECH

Secret space plane catches ride into orbit

James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY
Hundreds of people packed the Canaveral National Seashore for Wednesday morning’s United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch. The rocket is carrying the X-37B Space Plane and Solar Sail.

CAPE CANAVERAL – What will a military space plane do in low Earth orbit? How long will it stay there? Where will it land?

Speculation about purpose and duration of the Air Force's fourth, mostly classified X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle mission began anew after its 11:05 a.m. Wednesday launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

The unpiloted mini-shuttle departed with a new question about whether it might for the first time end its mission by rolling to a stop on Kennedy Space Center's three-mile runway, like astronauts in larger shuttles last did nearly four years ago.

The X-37B program is in the process of consolidating its operations in two former space shuttle hangars at KSC, giving it the option to land close to its Cape Canaveral launch site.

Work to prepare KSC as a landing site is ongoing, and the mission could still land at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as the previous three did.

"The future landing location will be determined by a variety of factors," Capt. Chris Hoyler, an Air Force spokesman, wrote in an e-mail. "The program expects to have the capability to land in Florida in mid to late 2016, however, at this time it would be premature to specify where OTV-4 will land."

Weighing 11,000 pounds with a nearly 15-foot wingspan, the X-37B is designed to stay in orbit for 270 days. But the first three missions flew progressively longer, with the last two spanning 469 days and 674 days – ample time for KSC to be ready to receive the fourth mission if it lasts as long.

The Air Force says the X-37B is advancing reusable spacecraft technologies, and allows systems to be tested in space, returned to the ground for inspection and potentially flown again before they are deployed operationally.

Wednesday's launch broadcast was blacked out about five minutes into the flight to protect the mission's secrecy.

ULA later declared it a success, along with the deployment of 10 small satellites that included The Planetary Society's first LightSail mission, a shoe box-sized demonstration of using solar energy to propel spacecraft.

"When you're using solar energy, it's there all the time," said Bill Nye, CEO of the nonprofit Planetary Society. "Although it's a very small thrust, it's continuous, so you can go, hypothetically, as far as you want in space."

The Air Force did not confirm which of its two Boeing-built X-37B space planes launched Wednesday, saying that decision was based on mission objectives.

But it did disclose more about this mission than previous ones, revealing that an experimental Air Force propulsion system and a NASA materials science experiment were among the payloads.

Brian Weeden, technical analyst at the Secure World Foundation, said that information supported his belief that the X-37B's main reason for being is to test technologies with a "try before you buy mentality."

He said the Air Force appeared to be trying to increase the still-opaque program's transparency, though that hasn't dispelled some nations' concerns that the mini-shuttle might take out enemy satellites or even deploy a weapon — capabilities the U.S. worries its adversaries are developing.

"The whole issue of an arms race in space and concerns about potential attacks on space capabilities has increased," Weeden said in an e-mail. "What the future holds for the X-37B technology is still very much a concern by outside observers, including Russia, China and even Europe."

On "60 Minutes" recently, Gen. John Hyten, head of Air Force Space Command, refused to answer a question about whether the X-37B could become a space weapons platform, saying only that it was "for cool things."

"I'm not going to say what it's going to become, because we're experimenting," Hyten said.

Whenever and wherever the newly launched mission lands, NASA's Kennedy Space Center will soon be the home base for those experiments.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.

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