Pentagon’s X-37B space plane to be launched on Sunday, mission unknown

Is it a secretive Pentagon weapon? Is it stealthy? Does it sneak as much as satellites? What precisely does it do in house? And why is it up there for thus lengthy?

The Pentagon won’t say. And the veil of secrecy over the X-37B continues forward of its launch Sunday at 8:14 p.m. Jap on its seventh mission. However this time there are some clues that no less than one thing is completely different.

The drone, which flies with out anybody on board, is to be launched for the primary time on SpaceX’s highly effective Falcon Heavy, which is extra highly effective than the rockets which have launched it previously. That’s led to hypothesis that the mission might be in a a lot larger orbit, which seems to be the case in keeping with recent documents. SpaceX received the $130 million contract for the launch in 2018.

Nonetheless, what it’d do in that larger orbit stays unknown.

The mission has “a variety of take a look at and experimentation goals,” is the Pentagon’s official statement. “These checks embody working the reusable spaceplane in new orbital regimes, experimenting with future house area consciousness applied sciences.”

The reference about “house area consciousness” may imply that it will likely be keeping track of different satellites, doubtlessly expecting threats. Having a greater sense of what’s going on within the vastness of house — the place adversaries’ spacecraft are and what they’re doing — has turn out to be a key mission of the U.S. Space Force. “Our house programs are threatened by quite a lot of rising antisatellite capabilities, and the joint power is threatened by more and more subtle adversary space-based programs meant to focus on the joint power,” Gen. Likelihood Saltzman, the Area Pressure’s chief of house operations, mentioned in a statement to Congress earlier this 12 months.

A minimum of one a part of the mission is thought. The automobile will “expose plant seeds to the cruel radiation setting of long-duration spaceflight” in an experiment for NASA. Previously, the Pentagon has additionally used the X-37B to check a few of its leading edge applied sciences, together with a small photo voltaic panel designed to remodel photo voltaic vitality into microwaves, a know-how that in the future may permit vitality harnessed in house to be beamed again to Earth.

The Boeing constructed X-37B has additionally been used to deploy small satellites, however what these did was additionally a thriller.

“The U.S. authorities is on this bizarre place the place they brag publicly about how superb it’s and leading edge, however is not going to present any information about it,” mentioned Brian Weeden, the director of program planning on the Safe World Basis, a assume tank.

A lot of the hypothesis in regards to the automobile might be incorrect, he mentioned. For now, its status is tied primarily to “its mystique,” he mentioned, although it appears clear that “it’s doing one thing that the Pentagon feels is essential.”

That mentioned, “it has near-zero feasibility as an orbital weapons system for attacking targets on the bottom,” Safe World says in a fact sheet about this system. In all chance, it’s used for the needs the Pentagon says it’s getting used for: “testing reusable house launch automobile applied sciences (corresponding to steering and thermal safety) and on-orbit testing of recent sensor applied sciences and satellite tv for pc {hardware} for threat discount,” in keeping with Safe World.

That has not stopped different nations, notably China, from pointing to the X-37B for instance of the U.S. weaponizing house. “They’ll’t cease speaking about this factor as a weapon, and the image of American hegemony in house,” Weeden mentioned.

China additionally has a secretive reusable spaceplane, the Shenlong, which has flown two missions up to now. The final one touched down in Could after spending 276 days in orbit. Just like the X-37B, it’s extremely secretive, and no photographs of it have been launched publicly. But it surely does seem like impressed by its American cousin, Weeden mentioned. The Chinese language pondering is that “if the Individuals assume it’s necessary, then possibly we should always make investments on this,” Weeden mentioned.

If Sunday’s X-37B mission is like earlier ones, the spaceplane may very well be in house for some time. Its first flight, which launched in 2010, lasted 224 days. Since then, every mission has gotten longer, and when it touched down at Cape Canaveral after its final flight in November 2022, it had been in orbit for 908 days. In all, the spaceplane has spent greater than 10 years in house, which has allowed the Pentagon to realize all types of knowledge about how completely different elements fare in house for prolonged durations.

“It has been a outstanding take a look at mattress and experimentation automobile for a few years,” Gen. David Thompson, the Area Pressure’s vice chief of house operations, mentioned throughout a discussion board earlier this 12 months. “I might let you know, you’re solely starting to see among the thrilling issues that we now have deliberate for the X-37.”