The vehicle that Boeing makes resembles a miniature space shuttle (representative)
After weeks of false starts and delays, the SpaceX team again prepared Thursday to launch the top-secret military space robot X-37B on its seventh mission, the first aboard a rocket capable of taking it to a higher orbit than ever before.
The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch at night from NASA’s Space Center. Kennedy at Cape Canaveral on Florida’s Atlantic coast in a 10-minute launch window starting at 20:07 EST (0107 GMT Friday).
A series of three launch countdowns stalled earlier this month due to bad weather and unspecified technical problems, forcing the ground crew to tow the spacecraft to a hangar before attempting a final launch attempt.
This comes two weeks after China’s reusable space robot, known as Shenlong, or “Divine Dragon,” launched on its third mission into orbit since 2020, marking a new chapter in the escalating US-China rivalry in space.
The latest weather forecast for Thursday’s flight predicted an 80% chance of favorable conditions for takeoff.
The Department of Defense has released few details about the X-37B mission conducted by the US Space Force as part of the military’s national security space launch program.
The Boeing-built vehicle, about the size of a small bus and resembling a miniature space shuttle, is intended to carry various payloads and conduct technological experiments during long-term orbital flights. At the end of its mission, the ship descends back through the atmosphere and lands on a runway, like an airplane.
Since 2010, it has carried out six missions, the first five launched on an Atlas V rocket belonging to United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and most recently, in May 2020, on a Falcon 9 rocket provided by Elon’s SpaceX Company. Musk.
Future missions will be launched on SpaceX’s more powerful Falcon Heavy rocket, capable of carrying heavier payloads than the X-37B further into space, possibly into geosynchronous orbit, more than 22,000 miles (35,000 km) above Earth.
The X-37B, also called an orbital test vehicle, was previously designed to fly in low Earth orbit, at altitudes below 2,000 km.
“New Orbital Regimes and Seeds”
The Pentagon did not say how high the astronauts would fly this time. But in a statement last month, the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office said Mission 7 would involve testing “a new orbital system as part of future space domain awareness technology experiments.”
The X-37B also conducted NASA experiments to study the effects of long-term exposure to harsh radiation conditions in space on plant seeds. The ability to grow crops in space has major implications for maintaining food supplies for astronauts on future long-term missions to the Moon and Mars.
China’s equally mysterious Shenlong was launched into space on December 14 aboard a Long March 2F rocket – a launch system less powerful than SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and limited in delivering payloads to low-Earth orbit.
However, Space Force Gen. B. Chance Saltzman told reporters at an industry conference earlier this month that he expected China to launch Shenlong around the same time as the upcoming X-37B flight, which he said was a competitive move.
“The Chinese are very interested in our spacecraft. We are very interested in them,” Saltzman said in remarks published by Air & Space Forces Magazine, an American aviation magazine.
“These are the two most frequently observed objects in orbit while in orbit. “It’s probably not a coincidence that they tried to match us in terms of timing and order of execution,” he said.
The X-37B’s final mission duration plan has not been made public, but it will likely last until June 2026 or later, given its pattern of consecutive longer flights.
The final mission remained in orbit for more than two years before landing again in November 2022.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
2023-12-28 20:01:05
#Armys #top #secret #X37B #spacecraft #ready #launched #higher #orbit #IndoChinatown
