Secretive X-37B Military Space Plane Could Land in California this Week

Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force / Michael StonecypherBy Tariq Malik.

The U.S. Air Force’s mysterious X-37B space plane will return to Earth this week —possibly as early as Tuesday — after 22 months in orbit on a secret mission.

The robotic X-37B space plane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, will land at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where Air Force officials are gearing up for its return. As of Oct. 12, the X-37B mini-shuttle has been in orbit since December 2012 and racked up a record-shattering 671 days in space.

“Team Vandenberg stands ready to implement safe landing operations for the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, the third time for this unique mission” said Col. Keith Baits, 30th Space Wing commander, in a statement on Friday (Oct. 10). [See photos from the X-37B mission]

The X-37B landing could occur on Tuesday (Oct. 14), according to several press reports, including Reuters. The spacecraft is designed to fly itself autonomously during landings.

The Air Force has two X-37B space planes in its fleet and has been flying them on secret missions since 2010. But the exact purpose of those flights have been shrouded in secrecy. The mission in orbit now, called Orbital Test Vehicle 3 (OTV-3), launched on Dec. 11, 2012 aboard an Atlas 5 rocket.

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Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force3 Theories About the Air Force’s Mystery Space Plane, X-37B

By Sharon Weinberger.

Although the Air Force won’t say what the X-37B’s exact purpose is, there is enough known about its orbit (and basic physics) to estimate what this craft is and is not meant to do. Let’s take the top three theories one by one.

1. It’s a Space Bomber

Forget it, independent experts say. Yes, at one point the Pentagon was funding development of a reusable hypersonic vehicle that was supposed to deliver munitions anywhere in the world within 2 hours. But that concept, called the Common Aero Vehicle, was suborbital. As a spaceplane, the X-37B would suffer from at least one major drawback as a bomber. Changing a spacecraft’s orbital plane requires a great amount of thrust—so using something like the X-37B as a bomber would mean changing its orbit to fly over targets, and that would eat up its limited fuel supply, according to University of Maryland professor Mark Lewis, who once served as the Air Force’s chief scientist. “If I can’t get my alleged bomber to the right location to release its bomb, what good is it?” Lewis says.

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