USAF to launch X-37B on Atlas V in November

Just in case nobody has noticed yet: The Air Force and Boeing are about
to launch an orbital X-37B test flight on an Atlas V in November from
Cape Canaveral, with a landing planned at Edwards AFB. This pushes the
NASA launch of LRO into 2009, by the way.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/gener...SPACE07298.xml

I was aware that there were drop tests going on through the last years
but I'm a bit surprised that they're indeed going to launch that thing
for real. There seems to be someone *really* wanting a military space
plane (albeit a rather smallish one). But what for?


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:38:09 +0200, Jochem Huhmann
wrote:

There seems to be someone *really* wanting a military space
plane (albeit a rather smallish one). But what for?

Reusable satellites.

Brian

"Jochem Huhmann" wrote in message
...
Just in case nobody has noticed yet: The Air Force and Boeing are about
to launch an orbital X-37B test flight on an Atlas V in November from
Cape Canaveral, with a landing planned at Edwards AFB. This pushes the
NASA launch of LRO into 2009, by the way.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/gener...SPACE07298.xml

I was aware that there were drop tests going on through the last years
but I'm a bit surprised that they're indeed going to launch that thing
for real. There seems to be someone *really* wanting a military space
plane (albeit a rather smallish one). But what for?

If it's unmanned, why have a spaceplane at all? A capsule is simpler and
fits payload shrouds (if any) easier. With the possible exception of
cross-range capability, what advantages does a spaceplane have over a
capsule?

Alan Erskine wrote:

If it's unmanned, why have a spaceplane at all? A capsule is simpler and
fits payload shrouds (if any) easier. With the possible exception of
cross-range capability, what advantages does a spaceplane have over a
capsule?

Perhaps the long term is to change the "unmanned" portion. Also, if you
a retreiving very sensitive satellite with very sensitive film/data on
it, you want it to land precisely and make damned sure nobody gets to it
before you do. And if payload is time sensitive, cross range allows you
to land sooner or later.

Perhaps the X37 itself is the satellite. Goes up, records what it needs
to record, comes back down, lands at edwards with all the data. Get
refitted with different stuff for a different mission and launched again.

Obviously, the USA military isn't going to brag publically about what it
will really do with this.

John Doe wrote:
Alan Erskine wrote:

If it's unmanned, why have a spaceplane at all? A capsule is simpler and
fits payload shrouds (if any) easier. With the possible exception of
cross-range capability, what advantages does a spaceplane have over a
capsule?

Perhaps the long term is to change the "unmanned" portion. Also, if you
a retreiving very sensitive satellite with very sensitive film/data on
it, you want it to land precisely and make damned sure nobody gets to it
before you do. And if payload is time sensitive, cross range allows you
to land sooner or later.

Perhaps the X37 itself is the satellite. Goes up, records what it needs
to record, comes back down, lands at edwards with all the data. Get
refitted with different stuff for a different mission and launched again.

Obviously, the USA military isn't going to brag publically about what it
will really do with this.

I would suspect John is correct. Clearly the plan is for this to evolve
into a manned craft at some point. Whether the X-37 already has manned
flights planned for the future or whether the X-37 will lead to a
derivative successor vehicle that will be manned I do not know, but I
would suggest that one of these two options is what is being planned.

I don't know the payload capacity of the X-37, but interestingly the
overall concept is somewhat along the lines of what I had hoped would
come out of the Orion program back when it was first started. I was
hoping to see a crew vehicle that would look something like a slightly
bulked up HL-10 lifting body (probably with a redesigned forward canopy
and more advanced materials) with a one time use replaceable ablative
heatshield on the bottom. The ablative shield would be comprised of a
small number of independent sections (perhaps around 4 or 6) so that the
whole shield would not have to lain up as one single piece. These
sections would bolt on (rather than glue on) to the bottom. I would
have liked to have launched this "bulked up HL-10" atop a vehicle
derived from EELV components ,at least using the engines if not
something evolved the EELVs vehicles themselves, and would have included
a launch abort escape tower on the nose of the lifting body. Most
importantly, this system would differ from the shuttle in that the
winged (or more properly - lifting body) crew vehicle would be much
smaller than the shuttle and only designed to carry crew and a moderate
amount of supplies and would sit *atop* the launch vehicle rather than
in tandem with the launch vehicle. Could have been a hell of a system I
think but unfortunately one of the lessons NASA learned from the Shuttle
was that "winged vehicles are bad". Personally I think the Shuttle
experience showed that large winged vehicles can be a bad ideal and I
definitely think it showed that tandem stacking of the crew vehicle and
the launch vehicle is a terrible idea.

In any case, I wonder if some future evolution of the X-37 might
possibly one day be considered as a competitor to the Orion capsule. I
suppose it will depend on how many crew the thing might be configured to
carry.

John Doe writes:

Alan Erskine wrote:

If it's unmanned, why have a spaceplane at all? A capsule is simpler and
fits payload shrouds (if any) easier. With the possible exception of
cross-range capability, what advantages does a spaceplane have over a
capsule?

Perhaps the long term is to change the "unmanned" portion.

They would need to scale up the thing quite a bit then. There is room
for that, though (the thing weights about 1/4 of what an Atlas V can get
into orbit). An upscaled version with a crew of three seems just possible.

Also, if you a retreiving very sensitive satellite with very sensitive
film/data on it, you want it to land precisely and make damned sure
nobody gets to it before you do. And if payload is time sensitive,
cross range allows you to land sooner or later.

Perhaps the X37 itself is the satellite. Goes up, records what it needs
to record, comes back down, lands at edwards with all the data. Get
refitted with different stuff for a different mission and launched
again.

Apart from optical film I can see no application where it wouldn't be
cheaper, easier and safer to transmit the data encrypted to the
ground... And the thing is just too small to be useful for that.

Obviously, the USA military isn't going to brag publically about what it
will really do with this.

Obviously. But it seems there *is* something they want to do with it and
they want it badly. I don't think the Air Force is doing this just for
the sake of research. Wasn't that supposed to be what NASA is for?


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Leopold Stotch writes:

In any case, I wonder if some future evolution of the X-37 might
possibly one day be considered as a competitor to the Orion capsule. I
suppose it will depend on how many crew the thing might be configured to
carry.

For the missions Orion is meant for it's useless. You don't drag some
winged thing to the Moon and back. And there's not much to do in LEO for
a manned craft except for the ISS, which has not that many years left.


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Jochem Huhmann" wrote in message
...
John Doe writes:

Obviously. But it seems there *is* something they want to do with it and
they want it badly. I don't think the Air Force is doing this just for
the sake of research. Wasn't that supposed to be what NASA is for?

Sub-orbital, high-speed recon?

On Aug 1, 4:35 am, Jochem Huhmann wrote:

Obviously. But it seems there *is* something they want to do with it and
they want it badly. I don't think the Air Force is doing this just for
the sake of research. Wasn't that supposed to be what NASA is for?


Wrong. The USAF does research for its needs. NASA is mostly civil
research

On Aug 1, 5:11 am, "Alan Erskine" wrote:
"Jochem Huhmann" wrote in message

...

John Doe writes:
Obviously. But it seems there *is* something they want to do with it and
they want it badly. I don't think the Air Force is doing this just for
the sake of research. Wasn't that supposed to be what NASA is for?

Sub-orbital, high-speed recon?

It isn't an sub-orbital vehicle.