Posted on 09/26/2012 5:06:06 PM PDT by justlurking
The U.S. military's mysterious X-37B space plane is headed back into the great beyond to do… whatever it does up there.
The X-37B is slated for its third launch in October, the Air Force said, but like its two orbital predecessors, the mission of the unmanned spacecraft remains shrouded in secrecy. The exact timing of the October spaceflight, dubbed Orbital Test Vechicle-3 or OTV-3, is also tentative.
"We are on track for the launch of the X-37B to occur next month, but the exact date of the launch is dependent on a number of factors including range conditions and weather," Air Force spokesperson Lt. Col . John Dorrian told ABC News. The 29-foot-long vehicle is set to launch aboard an Atlas 5 rocket from the Florida station of Cape Canaveral.
The pioneer voyage of the X-37B, called OTV-1, began in April of 2010 and lasted 225 days, eventually landing in December of the same year at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The second orbit, OTV-2, touched down on the same base this past June following a record-breaking 469 day travel.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I wonder if they could put a nuke on board, fly it over a target and create an EMP over a certain country in Persia should the need arise.
The new pipeline through the UAE bypasses the Straights of Hormuz: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Fstory%2F2012-07-15%2Femirates-pipeline%2F56237350%2F1&ei=x5ljUOqjH4nq8wS2noCoBA&usg=AFQjCNEBYgK5Ku3QuK6ECRFnBl9DuHlwtw
Iranian blockades are obsolete now.
Brevard County, Florida launch ping. One idea was that the military space plane could launch kinetic missiles (like metal bolts with fins) that would reenter the atmosphere at thousands of mph and would be capable of targeting and penetrating reinforced underground bunkers.
If it was really that big of a mystery, you wouldn’t be seeing pix of it in the fairing
Other upcoming launches:
Ariane 5, 26SEP2012, 2:18 p.m. PDT/5:18 p.m. EDT
Watch it live at http://www.arianespace.tv/
Falco 9, 7OCT2012, 5:34 p.m. PDT/8:34 p.m. EDT
Watch it live at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/004/status.html
SpaceX’s reusable rocket testbed takes first hop
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1209/24grasshopper/
Hybrid rocket engine with acrylic and gaseous oxygen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLPWqCMb7DE
Wait, wait, I know the mission!
It’ll be programmed to fly at high-altitude, skywriting behind it “OBAMA 2012” and “ALLAH AKBAR!”
Bad mumbo
Cool - wish we had more of them and a stronger space program, period.
25 October launch date.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av034/stacking.html
Wish we had a real President.......and a real House with a real Speaker, and a real Senate......
I agree, if we’re seeing it, it’s obsolete. We got sumpin else up there.
Did you hear it’s scheduled to fly a family of four over Kenya on January 21st where they’ll parachute to their new home?
We had stuff in 1983 (the year I left) that I still haven’t seen in the open press.
Do we have a “real count” of the X-craft past the X-15?
Anything “missing”? (But remember, the F-117 and SR-71/RS-71 were “off-numbered” from their real sequence, so it may not matter.)
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