The US military’s mysterious X-37B unmanned spaceplane took off Thursday night aboard SpaceX’s massive Falcon Heavy rocket for another secret mission involving “groundbreaking” experiments.
The spacecraft departed NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for its seventh flight, two weeks after a previously scheduled launch was delayed due to technical difficulties and powerful storms.
It is the first time the X-37B has been launched from a Falcon Heavy, which is significantly more powerful than previous rockets that have powered the reusable spaceplane and capable of sending it to a higher orbit than ever before.
The X-37B’s latest mission is expected to last several years, as was its previous two-and-a-half-year flight, which ended when it landed at the Kennedy Space Center a year ago.
Space Force officials have offered only vague descriptions of the tests and experiments the X-37B will perform.
“X-37B testing includes operating in new orbital regimes, experimenting with space domain awareness technologies, and investigating the effects of radiation on NASA materials,” the Space Force said in a statement.
The X-37B launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday night for another secret mission two weeks late due to technical difficulties and powerful storms. Joe Marino/UPI/Shutterstock
Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman previously explained that the flight, called OTV-7, will conduct “groundbreaking” experiments that will “equip the United States with the knowledge to improve current and future space operations.”
Some experts have speculated that the ship is searching for satellite threats from hostile nations.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall did not mention specific details but applauded the Space Force’s efforts.
Space Force officials did not say how long the X-37B would be in orbit or what was on board, saying only that it carries a NASA experiment that hopes to measure the effects of radiation on materials. Joe Marino/UPI/Shutterstock
“This is an incredible event, and I think about the teamwork over all those decades that has led to what has been a revolutionary improvement in space travel capability,” he said in a statement.
The X-37B was first launched in 2010 and has now been in orbit for more than a decade. It was built by Boeing and resembles NASA’s retired space shuttles, but much smaller in size.
The Pentagon has previously used X-37B to test some of its new technologies, including a small solar panel designed to transform solar energy into microwaves, which could one day allow energy extracted from space to be transmitted back to Earth, it reported. the Washington Post in early December.
The X-37Bs have also been used to deploy small satellites, although it is still unclear what these satellites actually did.
The unmanned vessel is equipped with an autonomous landing system. It takes off vertically like rockets, but lands horizontally like airplanes.
With post cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn