The newest mission of the U.S. Area Drive’s mysterious X-37B area aircraft is underway.
The robotic X-37B lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart (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 ideas of quantum mechanics.
“This know-how is helpful for navigation in GPS-denied environments and consequently will improve the navigational resilience of U.S. spacecraft within the face of present and rising threats,” the July 28 assertion reads. “As quantum inertial sensors could be helpful for navigation in cislunar [Earth-moon] area, they moreover promise to push the technological frontiers of long-distance area journey and exploration.”
The U.S. army additionally views laser-based communications as vital to nationwide safety and American area superiority going ahead. Laser comms are safer than conventional radio-frequency techniques due to their extra focused nature, they usually can transmit extra info in addition.
Throughout OTV-8, tools aboard the X-37B will conduct laser-comms exams “involving proliferated business satellite tv for pc networks in low Earth orbit,” in accordance with the July 28 assertion.
“OTV-8’s laser communications demonstration will mark an vital step within the U.S. Area Drive’s capability to leverage proliferated area networks as a part of a diversified and redundant area structure,” Chief of Area Operations Gen. Likelihood Saltzman mentioned within the assertion. “In so doing, it would strengthen the resilience, reliability, adaptability and information transport speeds of our satellite tv for pc communications structure.”
A type of “proliferated area networks” is probably going Starlink, SpaceX’s big and ever-growing broadband megaconstellation, which at the moment options greater than 8,000 operational satellites in LEO.
Starlink is already up and working, offering service to prospects around the globe. A number of rivals are within the early development part, together with Amazon’s Venture Kuiper, which up to now has lofted 102 of its deliberate 3,200 satellites.
The X-37B — which launches vertically atop a rocket however comes right down to Earth horizontally, on a runway — flew its first orbital mission in 2010. The automobile’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 period. Beforehand, every X-37B sojourn had spent extra time in area than its predecessors, from the 224-day OTV-1 to the 908-day OTV-6. We do not know the way lengthy OTV-8 is predicted to final; that is one of many mission particulars that the Area Drive 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 opposite 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.
