Posted on 07/31/2019 6:47:43 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Former Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson revealed to an audience last week that the X-37B spaceplane can pull off maneuvers in space that drives potential adversaries “nuts.” Although maddeningly unspecific, experts believe she was referring to the X-37B’s ability to change its orbit, throwing off both amateur and professional satellite watchers and making the spacecraft unpredictable.
According to Military.com, Wilson was speaking at the Apsen Security Forum when she remarked that the X-37B "can do an orbit that looks like an egg and, when it's close to the Earth, it's close enough to the atmosphere to turn where it is."
"Which means our adversaries don't know—and that happens on the far side of the Earth from our adversaries—where it's going to come up next. And we know that that drives them nuts. And I'm really glad about that."
Experts polled by Military.com suggested Wilson is referring to the increased drag that the spaceplane would encounter flying close to the atmosphere. Atmospheric drag, combined with the Space Shuttle-like vehicle’s stubby wings, would make it possible for the X-37B to change its orbit, throwing off space watchers who had previously detected it and predicted it would arrive at a certain point. The maneuver would be carried out while the spacecraft was on the opposite end of the Earth, out of view of adversaries.
Example: the Chinese military has located the X-37B in space and is maneuvering satellites to get a closer look at it. If the U.S. gets wind of the operation, spotting the approaching Chinese satellites, it could order the X-37B to change its orbit—ideally over South America—the opposite end of the Earth from China. The X-37B would simply fail to show up at the designated time, forcing the Chinese to reacquire the spacecraft and start the operation all over again.
A hint of this capability may have been mentioned earlier this year, when a civilian space watcher released photos of the X-37B. Dutch satellite watcher Ralf Vandebergh told Space.com he originally caught sight of the X-37B in May of 2019 but when he went to look for it again in June the spaceplane was nowhere to be found. It had moved to a different orbit.
Update: Another space watcher, Dr. Marco Langbroek, posted data from the five X-37B missions on Twitter that show little change in the spacecraft's orbital inclination. [Click source link to see plots]
Here are plots of the orbital inclination over time of all five X-37B OTV missions. Only OTV 4 might show something of a more than trivial inclination change, but even there it is limited.
(these are from amateur obs showing that the X-37B aren't really that difficult to track) pic.twitter.com/rB9JQD7n0V
— Dr Marco Langbroek (@Marco_Langbroek) July 24, 2019 Langbroek has written a blog post about the X-37B's purported abilities. His conclusion: "the orbital history of the five X-37B OTV missions so far do not evidence the alleged maneuverability in orbital plane
I’m sure the Air Force appreciates Ms. Wilson’s efforts to publicize this capability.
USAF Ping.
“I’m sure the Air Force appreciates Ms. Wilson’s efforts to publicize this capability.”
Maybe the Air Force wants it known.
Confusion to our enemies and all that.
L
By the time we find out about it, it is no longer in the inventory.
Using aerobraking to accomplish small crossrange maneuvers is not what was observed with the famous tic-tac in the F18 FLIR video.
Let’s see. The US might be able to change the orbit or direction of a spacecraft, but can they safely maneuver a Navy ship in traffic? (sarcasm)
That was a radar anomaly, guarantee it.
Imagery of the site, in the Quintuco region of Neuquén Province, near the town of Bajada del Agrio in Patagonia, Argentina, shows a surprising rapidity of construction, especially for such a remote area [coordinates: 38.1914°S, 70.1495°W]. The project has been carried out by China Harbour Engineering Company, a subsidiary of state-controlled China Communications Construction Company, which has been integral to China’s unprecedented and frenetic island building in the South China Sea. CLTC, the operator of the Neuquén facility, is a unit of the General Armaments Department of China’s People’s Liberation Army. A related sponsor, whose name is written on a sign outside the Patagonia base, is the Xi’an Satellite Control Center, described by some security analysts as the nerve center of the PLA’s satellite tracking, telemetry and control activities worldwide.
https://thediplomat.com/2016/05/china-builds-space-monitoring-base-in-the-americas/
This implies that keeping track of it is a ground-based capability. Wouldn't there be a significant space-based tracking capability, that would obviously work no matter where it was? Or, do adversaries just not have space-based tracking?
It thinks Small
That may be old news.
Tic tac and an F-18 FLIR video?
— Dr Marco Langbroek (@Marco_Langbroek) July 24, 2019 Langbroek has written a blog post about the X-37B’s purported abilities. His conclusion: “the orbital history of the five X-37B OTV missions so far do not evidence the alleged maneuverability in orbital plane
...
Keep our enemies guessing.
Throwing more money into limitless projects to try and keep up with our technological and technical innovation is a sure way to bankrupt a competitor. Just ask Reagan and the USSR.
Bingo.
So, this assumes our “adversaries” do not have satellites orbiting around the earth too, able to hand off tracking data from one to another as it leaves one ‘s sensor capability and moves into anothers? Why do I think this article and writer are idiots?
You think they’re idiots because they’re idiots.
If the normal orbit intersected the atmosphere deeply enough to allow maneuvering, it would decay and return to earth after not many orbits.
If it doesn’t intersect the atmosphere, the only way to use the atmosphere for maneuvering is to decelerate to drop into the atmosphere, turn, and then re-accelerate to push the perigee above the atmosphere. It would take less fuel to just light the engines and directly perform the orbital change desired on rocket thrust.
Loose lips....
Or misdirection.
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