It circled the Earth in obscurity for more than half a year, now the X-37B OTV-5 space plane has been conclusively identified by amateur satellite observers in a circular orbit 356 Kilometers in altitude.
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 blasted into partly cloudy skies over Cape Canaveral on Thursday, carrying into orbit the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B winged space plane on a mostly classified mission to test out new technologies in space and perform a range of experiments out of public view as part of the program’s fifth flight to space.
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A at 14:00 UTC on September 7, 2017 – carrying into orbit the fifth mission of the U.S. Air Force X-37B space plane.
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A at 14:00 UTC on September 7, 2017 – carrying into orbit the fifth mission of the U.S. Air Force X-37B space plane.
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The U.S. Air Force announced on Tuesday that the next mission of their X-37B reusable space plane would be launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in August.
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The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) picked Boeing’s Phantom Works division to complete advanced design work for the agency’s Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program that aims to build and fly an autonomous, reusable hypersonic space plane capable of dispatching medium-class satellites into Low Earth Orbit.
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A zipline system designed to carry astronauts to safety in case of an on-pad anomaly finished installation into the Crew Access Tower at Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41 from where crews will take off aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft as early as 2018 atop Atlas V rockets.
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The U.S. Air Force X-37B OTV-4 spacecraft on Saturday surpassed the record for the longest flight duration of any mission in the clandestine program, marking 675 days in orbit for the small winged space plane on its current mission reportedly dedicated to a series of technical demonstrations and space experiments.
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NASA quietly closed a deal with Boeing for up to five seats aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to expand the U.S. Crew Complement aboard the International Space Station and gain additional margin in the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
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NASA provided preliminary approval for the addition of a commercial airlock module to the International Space Station in 2019 to streamline satellite deployments from the orbiting outpost.
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