X-37B photos released

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0911/24otv/
Hard to see the belly TPS, but the nose doesn't appear to have a RCC cap
like on the Shuttle, and the leading edge of the butterfly tail doesn't
seem to have the same sort of leading edge thermal protection as the wings.
Small wing size in proportion to the rest of the vehicle suggests a
fairly high landing speed.

Pat

In sci.space.history Pat Flannery wrote:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0911/24otv/
Hard to see the belly TPS, but the nose doesn't appear to have a RCC
cap like on the Shuttle, and the leading edge of the butterfly tail
doesn't seem to have the same sort of leading edge thermal
protection as the wings. Small wing size in proportion to the rest
of the vehicle suggests a fairly high landing speed.

It could be the angles, but there appears to be some sort of
reflection off the nose. Also, there seem to be four shades on the
thing - white, gray, dark gray and black - and the belly of the nose
is a dark gray rather than gray/lightgray - a color that appears to
match the tail - or at least the upper/leading surface of the tail.
Might the tail be in at least a partial "shadow" during reentry?

It does rather look like it changed its stripes as it were from the
image from 2007

Looks a little like Klipper doesn't it? Perhaps that is where the
Russians can claim a 2010 test flight?-)

rick jones
--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

Rick Jones wrote:

It could be the angles, but there appears to be some sort of
reflection off the nose. Also, there seem to be four shades on the
thing - white, gray, dark gray and black - and the belly of the nose
is a dark gray rather than gray/lightgray - a color that appears to
match the tail - or at least the upper/leading surface of the tail.
Might the tail be in at least a partial "shadow" during reentry?

It would depend on the angle that it reenters at; it might be able to
shadow the tail in the shockwave created by the airflow from the
underside of the wing if it pancakes in like the Shuttle; but if it does
that, it will have to rely on the RCS during the high heat part of the
reentry rather than steering via the tail surfaces till it gets into
nose-forward gliding flight.
I'm really be keen to see the underside of it to see if there are
Shuttle-type tiles down there - you can see that the leading edge of the
wing is made up of several segments like on the Shuttle, but they are
black rather than the Shuttle's dark gray RCC leading edge segments.
Maybe they figured out a way to either coat or impregnate the RCC with
some sort of other material to toughen it up after Columbia.
We'll know a lot more about the TPS after we get a look at it after the
spacecraft returns from orbit and any color changes can be noted.
I get the feeling that the light gray sections of the vehicle might be
some sort of fabric-like covering like the high-temperature felt used on
the Shuttle in the lower heat flux areas bordering the tiles.
They were playing around with woven metallic or ceramic fabric type TPS
systems during the X-30 NASP project, and some of what that research
came up with may be incorporated into the X-37B.


It does rather look like it changed its stripes as it were from the
image from 2007

Looks a little like Klipper doesn't it? Perhaps that is where the
Russians can claim a 2010 test flight?-)


I like the dueling Russian space firms coming up with Super Soyuz vs.
Kliper type vehicles...when they don't have the money to build either
one. :-D

Pat

The thing looks awfully tail-heavy, especially if it returns with an
empty cargo bay. (I assume the part over the wing is such a bay, with
Shuttle-like doors.)
Perhaps there's a fuel tank in the nose and provisions for pumping
propellant from rear to front???

wrote:
The thing looks awfully tail-heavy, especially if it returns with an
empty cargo bay. (I assume the part over the wing is such a bay, with
Shuttle-like doors.)
Perhaps there's a fuel tank in the nose and provisions for pumping
propellant from rear to front???

There is a large oxidizer (hydrogen peroxide) tank behind the wing and a
far smaller JP-8* fuel tank ahead of the payload bay, so once the
hydrogen peroxide is used up, the center of gravity will shift quite a
ways forward and let it glide correctly once it reenters the atmosphere.
Here's a cutaway of it, showing where everything is located at:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/350/9905002.jpg

* Standard military turbine engine fuel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-8

Pat

On Nov 26, 5:46*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

There is a large oxidizer (hydrogen peroxide) tank behind the wing and a
far smaller JP-8* fuel tank ahead of the payload bay, so once the
hydrogen peroxide is used up, the center of gravity will shift quite a
ways forward and let it glide correctly once it reenters the atmosphere.
Here's a cutaway of it, showing where everything is located at:http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/350/9905002.jpg

* Standard military turbine engine fuel:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-8

Pat


Nope, the engine has been replaced with a hypergol thruster using MMH
and N2O4