X-37B Photographed in Orbit, has Surprising Ability

Skywatcher and satellite tracker Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands recently caught a rare glimpse of the U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane.

Vandebergh said he'd been hunting for the robotic spacecraft for months and finally managed to track it down in May. But it took a bit longer to get photos of the vehicle.

"When I tried to observe it again [in] mid-June, it didn't meet the predicted time and path," Vandebergh explained. "It turned out to have maneuvered to another orbit. Thanks to the amateur satellite observers' network, it was rapidly found in orbit again, and I was able to take some images on June 30 and July 2."

The X-37B's recent passes were almost overhead, Vandebergh added.

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Apparently, the X-37B can change its orbit in a surprising way.

Europe Wants its own X-37B, called the Space Rider

Space Rider is a re-entry vehicle, the evolution of the IXV (Intermediate Experimental Vehicle, launched by Vega in February 2015), capable of ‘navigating’ up to 2 months in low Earth orbit before returning to earth. Re-entry enables the recovery of all the useful load that can be analysed, and the vehicle to be reused for a new mission. The contract signed by ESA with Avio and TAS-I (Thales Alenia Space Italia) is worth a total of €36.7 million for the development of the Space Rider system, consisting of two modules: AOM (Avum Orbital Module) and RM (Re-entry Module). Avio will handle the development of AOM, a specific version of AVUM (fourth stage of the VEGA C) capable of supplying power and services for controlling the vehicle’s re-entry attitude during the orbital stage.

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Why DARPA is Pushing the XS-1 Spaceplane

Citing increasing U.S. launch costs and the “fleeing” of commercial customers to foreign launch service providers, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is continuing to push a bold strategy tied to a new, reusable spaceplane that the Agency envisions flying 10 times in 10 days for a cost of less than $5 million USD per flight.

The issue:

As defined by DARPA, the “Dramatic growth in U.S. launch costs since [the] early 1990s is driving much larger growth in space system costs.”

As part of DARPA’s “Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1): Aiming to Reduce the Time to Space and Cost to Space by Orders of Magnitude” overview (video and materials in L2), the program cites an annual DoD (Department of Defense) launch cost in excess of $3 billion USD, with small launches now cited as greater than $50 million USD each.

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Sierra Nevada Completes First Milestone for DreamChaser SpaceStation Resupply

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has successfully concluded the first of its CRS2 contract milestones, as it pushes towards missions – via the cargo version of the Dream Chaser spacecraft – to conduct resupply runs to the International Space Station (ISS). Meanwhile, the company is also continuing to prepare the crew Dream Chaser for a second free flight in California.

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Why DARPA is Pursuing the XS-1 Spaceplane

Here’s a phrase that’s not repeated everyday in the space community:

“You’ve heard Elon’s comments … we want to go beyond that,” Brad Tousley, the head of the tactical technology office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said May 15.

Elon, of course, is Elon Musk, the optimistic, and some say visionary, founder of SpaceX with plans of eventually colonizing Mars. After landing three first-stage rockets, Musk has said SpaceX would inspect the rockets with plans to later re-fly most of them.

Tousley oversees DARPA’s space programs, which often handles the Defense Department’s most difficult development challenges. He described the landing of first stage rockets by SpaceX and Blue Origin as “very, very impressive accomplishments.”

But during a speech at the GEOINT 2016 conference here, Tousley said the agency’s experimental spaceplane, known as XS-1, also has ambitious plans.

“We want to launch again in 24 hours,” he said.

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What is the X-37B Space Plane Been Doing in Orbit for Nearly a Year?

For years now, the program to develop the X-37B spacecraft has been shrouded in secrecy. Originally intended as part of a NASA project to develop a reusable unmanned spacecraft, this Boeing-designed spaceplane was taken over by the Department of Defense in 2004. And while it has been successfully tested on multiple occasions, there remain some unanswered questions as to its intended purpose and what has been taking place during these flights.

This, predictably, has lead to all kinds of rumors and speculation, with some suggesting that it could be a spy plane while others think that it is intended to deliver space-based weapons. It’s latest mission – which was dubbed OTV-4 (Orbital Test Vehicle-4) – has been especially clandestine. And after nearly a year in orbit, it remains unclear what the X37B has been doing up there all this time.

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India Postpones Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator Test to February

The winged Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) was scheduled to be tested in the first week of February.

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Sierra Nevada Proposing DreamChaser as X-37B Alternative

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) believes its Dream Chaser could be a viable alternative to the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle for long-duration, recoverable experimentation in space.

The company says its vehicle, which is still in development, could be called upon to support the kinds of missions the US Air Force is currently conducting with the X-37B.

With an updated, folding-wing design unveiled earlier this year, SNC’s Dream Chaser can be launched inside a standard Atlas V or Delta IV payload fairing and can “stay on orbit well in excess of a year”, the company says.

SNC Space Systems corporate vice-president Mark Sirangelo says that while he cannot say what types of missions the Orbital Test Vehicle programme is trying to accomplish, Dream Chaser would be a larger and viable alternative to Boeing’s experimental spacecraft.

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First Three X-37b Missions Were Vehicle Characterization, 4th Next Month for Experiments

The U.S. Air Force on Friday made its first public confirmation that the X-37B unmanned space shuttle will be launched next month on the fourth flight of an Orbital Test Vehicle.

“We are excited about our fourth X-37B mission,” said Randy Walden, the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. “With the demonstrated success of the first three missions, we’re able to shift our focus from initial checkouts of the vehicle to testing of experimental payloads.”

The Air Force said its Rapid Capabilities Office had collaborated with several partners to test “new experiments on this fourth flight for the X-37B program.”

What’s more, the mission will test the performance of an experimental propulsion system jointly developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and Space and Missile Systems Center, as well as a NASA advanced materials investigation.

“We’re very pleased with the experiments lined-up for our fourth OTV Mission OTV-4,” Walden said. “We’ll continue to evaluate improvements to the space vehicle’s performance, but we’re honored to host these collaborative experiments that will help advance the state-of-the-art for space technology.”

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Mysterious US Air Force X-37B Space Plane to Launch on May 6th

With its new homeport in renovated NASA space shuttle hangars off in the distance, the Air Force’s X-37 mini spaceplane will be launched from Cape Canaveral on May 6 for its fourth journey into orbit.

The Orbital Test Vehicle will be the primary payload aboard the next United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, the 54th Atlas 5 and ULA’s 96th mission overall. The launch has a codename AFSPC 5 for the Air Force Space Command flight No. 5.

Liftoff is targeted some time between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. EDT (1300-1700 GMT).

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X-37B Returns From Orbit After 675

The U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane has returned to Earth after spending nearly two years on a hush-hush orbital mission.

The X-37B space plane touched down at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on Friday (Oct. 17) at 9:24 a.m. local Pacific time (12:24 p.m. EDT; 1624 GMT), ending a mission that kicked off in December 2012 and saw the unmanned vehicle circle Earth for an unprecedented 675 days.

"I'm extremely proud of our team for coming together to execute this third safe and successful landing," said Col. Keith Balts, commander of the 30th Space Wing, which is headquartered at Vandenberg, in a statement. "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."

Just what the space plane was doing up there for so long remains unclear; details about X-37B missions — including the payloads carried to orbit — are officially classified.

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XS-1 Concept Video

Boeing Expanding, Consolidating X-37B Operations at Cape Kennedy

Boeing will expand its presence in Florida by adding technology, engineering and support jobs at the Kennedy Space Center. Financial and employment details are not being disclosed.

Investments will be made to convert the former space shuttle facility, OPF-1, to a facility that would enable the U.S. Air Force to efficiently land, recover, refurbish, and re-launch the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), a 29-foot-long, reusable unmanned spacecraft.

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DARPA Takes a Crack at a Spaceplane Again

We've been round this loop a few times before, but DARPA is never shy of trying again. So the agency plans another attempt at developing a reusable launch vehicle capable of aircraft-like operations.

A proposers' day is planned on Oct 7 for DARPA's new XS-1 program to demonstrate a reusable Mach 10 aircraft capable of deploying an upper stage to insert 3,000-5,000lb payloads into low Earth orbit, with a target cost of less than $5 million per launch at a rate exceeding 10 flights per year.

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