Secret Space Plane Finally Lands; Twin Preps for Launch

After 225 days in orbit the Air Force’s mysterious X-37B space plane touched down Friday at 1:16 a.m. local time at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base. It was only the second fully automated re-entry and runway landing in the history of space flight. The Soviets achieved the first in 1988 with the robotic prototype of […]

After 225 days in orbit the Air Force's mysterious X-37B space plane touched down Friday at 1:16 a.m. local time at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. It was only the second fully automated re-entry and runway landing in the history of space flight. The Soviets achieved the first in 1988 with the robotic prototype of their Buran Space Shuttle clone.

Space-plane program manager Lt. Col. Troy Giese says that "today's landing culminates a successful mission" which "completed all the on-orbit objectives." But the Air Force has been consistently vague about what that mission really was. For a while, military personnel claimed they didn't even know when the X-37B was coming back to Earth.

With a payload bay roughly the size of a pickup-truck bed, the 29-foot-long robot could carry sensors or even weapons. Its maneuverability -- amateur skywatchers tracked the X-37 making four major course changes -- means it could sneak up on and hijack other nations' satellites. Or it could be a mere flying laboratory, as the Air Force insists.

"I still stand by my initial assessment that its primary mission was likely to be test flight of new sensors or satellite hardware," says Brian Weeden from the Secure World Foundation. He adds that he thinks the X-37 has "pretty much zero utility as a 'space bomber'" or satellite-killer.

One thing is clear: the X-37 saga has just begun. The Air Force has commissioned Boeing to build a second X-37 to enter service next spring. And the first X-37 could find itself back in orbit in short order, as well.

After all, one of the advantages of airplane-style spacecraft is their reusability. Lacking disposable stages like a rocket capsule, they don't have to be pieced back together post-mission. Just check out the electronics and the plumbing, inspect the skin for cracks and, in theory, you've got a spaceworthy vehicle.

"It will be interesting to see how fast they can turn the X-37B around for another launch," Weeden says. "That is going to be a key indicator of how 'operational' the technology is and its value to supporting the war-fighter."

Even if its initial tests were a bust and it proves incapable of quickly returning to space, the X-37 has already changed the world. The vehicle's mere existence threatened to spark a minor space race between the United States and rival powers. And the X-37 boosted the ambitions of commercial space-launch advocates who are wheedling NASA for access to their own reusable, low-orbit space plane.

Photo: U.S. Air Force

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