No
one seems to know much about the Air Force's X-37B secret space plane
except that it seems to be working exactly as designed. The unmanned
Boeing-built craft, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, returned
to Earth on Friday after nearly two years — 674 days, to be exact — in
space. It's the X-37B program's third mission to space and by far the
longest.
The plane landed at 9:24
a.m. local time on Oct. 17 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California,
the Air Force's 30th Space Wing announced.
"The 30th Space Wing and
our mission partners, Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, Boeing, and
our base support contractors, have put countless hours of hard work into
preparing for this landing and today we were able to see the
culmination of that dedication," Colonel Keith Balts, 30th Space Wing
commander, said in a release. "I'm extremely proud of our team for
coming together to execute this third safe and successful landing.
Everyone from our on console space operators to our airfield managers
and civil engineers take pride in this unique mission and exemplify
excellence during its execution."
But just what did the X-37B do up there? The Air Force isn't telling.
To be fair, experimental
military-funded space projects aren't exactly the kind of thing you
expect the brass to talk about in public. Inquiries over the years, and
this week by NBC News, have always been met with polite but firm "no
comment."
What is known is that
the X-37B has no human pilot, or at least not one in its windowless
cockpit. It's operated remotely and lands on its own. The details of its
launches aren't secret, but nor are they particularly interesting: it
rode an Atlas V booster on Dec. 12, 2012, and assumed orbit about 180
miles above the Earth. That last part, notably, was figured out by a
network of curious astronomers, not released publicly by the Air Force.
The plane's size means
there isn't room on board for much except avionics equipment, fuel for
the thrusters, and a mysterious cavity about the size of a truck bed
that could contain all manner of sensors, experiments, hardware —
perhaps even a plant or some bacterial colonies. Of course, no one can
be sure what's inside.
Until the Air Force
decides it's time to spill the beans, the X-37B will keep its secrets,
even if they happen to just be ordinary testing of still-classified
radio hardware or radiation-resistant materials. For now, the X-37B (and
its siblings, however many there may be) will be locked away at
Vandenberg Air Base in California, waiting, perhaps, to break its own
record for days in orbit.
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