The Mystery Behind the Air Force’s Classified Space Plane
The last time the Air Force’s super secretive X-37B space plane launched, it didn’t come down until almost two years later–674 days to be exact. On Wednesday, it launched again, and was scheduled to stay in orbit for 270 days. Or maybe more.
No one knows for sure because the largely classified project is shrouded in mystery. The Air Force will only say that it will test a new, experimental thruster. The rocket carrying the space craft will also deliver a small satellite that would fly using a “solar sail.” But the broader mission of the Boeing-made X-37B, which looks like a miniature version of a the space shuttle, is not publicly known.
Space has become an increasingly important part of national security, a realm the Pentagon and the intelligence community is keenly focused on. And the ability to keep an unmanned space craft that could circle the Earth for months at a time and then land on an airstrip so that it could be used again could have all kinds of potential, from keeping an eye on the weather as well as the enemy.
“Space is so vitally important to everything we do,” Maj. Gen. Tom Masiello, the commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Space and Missile Systems Center, said in a recent statement. “Secure comms, ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance], missile warning, weather prediction, precision navigation and timing all rely on it, and the domain is increasingly contested.”
In Congressional testimony last month, Air Force Lt. Gen John Raymond said that space has become a “warfighting domain,” and he warned that other countries, particularly, China and Russia, “remain concerns for us as we assess threats in the space domain.” Officials have said the countries have the ability to blind satellites with lasers or blow them up with missiles. (Read more from “The Mystery Behind the Air Force’s Classified Space Plane” HERE)
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