X-37B: Secret U.S. Air Force space plane in orbit more than a year - and no one knows what it`s doing

X-37B: Secret space plane 1 year on mystery mission
RT News
Published: 09 March, 2012, 16:27

The X-37B spacecraft (AFP Photo/US Air Force) RT

The US Air Force’s highly secret robotic space plane continues to circle our planet a year after being launched, with no authoritative version of the shadowy mission purpose presented to public.

Since the original test mission of the first X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle One (OTV-1) that was performed in April 2010 and lasted the promised 270 days, the US Air Force has been insisting the X-37 program is a purely scientific undertaking and a testing platform of new technology.

Very little has been revealed about the spacecraft. The only information available on the successive OTV-2 mission launched on March 5, 2011, with an Atlas 5 booster rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida is that the space plane is an 8.8-meter- long and 4.5-meter-wide solar-powered vehicle.


An artist's rendition of the X-37B as it might look like orbiting Earth (AFP Photo / NASA) Video: Launch of Atlas-V 501 with X-37B OTV-2 from simmisuper YouTube channel

The experimental spacecraft was supposed to return to an airstrip in California nine months later in December – but that never happened.

In the meantime, a third X-37B space plane mission is being prepared with a launch possibly going to be performed before the end of this year.

From the very beginning space enthusiasts have been proposing different versions of what the spacecraft is supposed to do while circling the planet at declared orbits varying from 200 to 750 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.In the meantime, a third X-37B space plane mission is being prepared with a launch possibly going to be performed before the end of this year.
From the very beginning space enthusiasts have been proposing different versions of what the spacecraft is supposed to do while circling the planet at declared orbits varying from 200 to 750 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

The initial idea has been that the spacecraft is a new type of a surveillance satellite that can change orbits to fly above the desired territory on Earth. This version has had a go because the craft did fly over Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Pakistan and changed orbits not once.
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Infographic depicts the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is an unmanned space test vehicle for the USAF (CREDIT: Karl Tate, SPACE.com)