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The newest mission of the U.S. Space Force’s mysterious X-37B house aircraft is underway.
The robotic X-37B lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida tonight (Aug. 21) at 11:50 p.m. EDT (0350 GMT on Aug. 22).
The Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth as deliberate 8.5 minutes later, touching down at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which is next door to KSC. The rocket’s upper stage, meanwhile, continued carrying the X-37B toward low Earth orbit, where the space plane will do a variety of work, some of it quite hush-hush. It’s unclear when and exactly where the X-37B will be deployed; SpaceX ended its launch webcast just after rocket landing, at the Space Force’s request.
The 29-foot-long (8.8 meters) X-37B looks like a miniature version of NASA’s now-retired space shuttle orbiters. The Space Force is believed to have two of the uncrewed vehicles, both of which were built by Boeing.
The X-37B serves primarily as a testbed for sensors and other technology that the military wants to check out in Earth orbit, which explains the space plane’s other name — the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). Much of this gear is classified, so we usually get just a partial picture of X-37B payloads and activities in the final frontier.
The military has given us such a snapshot about the coming mission, which is known as OTV-8. The payloads going up are “next-generation technologies including laser communications and the highest-performing quantum inertial sensor ever tested in space,” Space Force officials wrote in a July 28 statement.
A quantum inertial sensor is an instrument that enables spacecraft to gauge their acceleration, rotation and velocity utilizing the rules of quantum mechanics.
“This technology is useful for navigation in GPS-denied environments and consequently will enhance the navigational resilience of U.S. spacecraft in the face of current and emerging threats,” the July 28 assertion reads. “As quantum inertial sensors would be useful for navigation in cislunar [Earth-moon] space, they additionally promise to push the technological frontiers of long-distance space travel and exploration.”
The U.S. army additionally views laser-based communications as vital to nationwide safety and American house superiority going ahead. Laser comms are safer than conventional radio-frequency programs due to their extra focused nature, and so they can transmit extra info in addition.
During OTV-8, tools aboard the X-37B will conduct laser-comms checks “involving proliferated commercial satellite networks in low Earth orbit,” in accordance with the July 28 assertion.
“OTV-8’s laser communications demonstration will mark an important step in the U.S. Space Force’s ability to leverage proliferated space networks as part of a diversified and redundant space architecture,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman mentioned within the assertion. “In so doing, it will strengthen the resilience, reliability, adaptability and data transport speeds of our satellite communications architecture.”
One of these “proliferated space networks” is probably going Starlink, SpaceX’s enormous and ever-growing broadband megaconstellation, which at present options greater than 8,000 operational satellites in LEO.
Starlink is already up and operating, offering service to prospects all over the world. Several rivals are within the early building section, together with Amazon’s Project Kuiper, which thus far has lofted 102 of its deliberate 3,200 satellites.
The X-37B — which launches vertically atop a rocket however comes all the way down to Earth horizontally, on a runway — flew its first orbital mission in 2010. The car’s most up-to-date earlier flight, OTV-7, launched in December 2023 and landed on March 7 of this 12 months.
That 434-day mission ended a sample of ever-escalating length. Previously, every X-37B sojourn had spent extra time in house than its predecessors, from the 224-day OTV-1 to the 908-day OTV-6. We do not understand how lengthy OTV-8 is anticipated to final; that is one of many mission particulars that the Space Force retains near the vest.
OTV-8 is the third X-37B mission to launch on a SpaceX rocket. (Two have employed Falcon 9s and one lifted off on a Falcon Heavy). The different 5 flew atop United Launch Alliance’s workhorse Atlas V, which is now being phased out in favor of the corporate’s new Vulcan Centaur.
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