
Finally an image of X-37B/OTV-5, US Air Force's secretive space plane, in orbit - green-eclipse
http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=154946
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Stratoscope
Since their photo site doesn't seem to link back to the main site, let me put
in a good word for SpaceWeather.com:

[http://www.spaceweather.com/](http://www.spaceweather.com/)

Yes, it looks old fashioned and it has a lot of ads. But it's full of
interesting stuff, like the photo of last Tuesday's total solar eclipse _taken
from Moon orbit_ by Longjiang-2.

The site is run by Dr. Tony Phillips, a high school science teacher in Bishop,
California, and occasional writer for NASA. His students launch balloons to
the edge of space and run science experiments on them:

[http://earthtosky.net/](http://earthtosky.net/)

The balloon rises until it pops, the payload parachutes down and the students
scramble across the desert to pick it up.

To finance the missions, they fly jewelry, golf balls, stuffed toys and
trinkets on the balloons and sell them in their online shop. Or you can
sponsor one of their research flights for $500, send up whatever you want and
get a video of your item in flight.

Maybe I can get a few ham radio operators together to send up some kind of
radio experiment. Sounds like great fun for us, as well as sponsoring the
student research.

I think Dr. Tony's students will do some great things in their careers!

~~~
mmaunder
Could do a home built VHF repeater, kinda like a cubesat, and see what the
furthest distance is between contacts. Would need to coordinate frequencies
and you'd probably want to run it like a contesting thing with very short QSO
to maximize the number of contacts. I'd donate a hundred bucks. It would be
nice to have a telemetry radio onboard too.

73 WT1J

~~~
Stratoscope
Very cool idea. I will also kick it around with my friends in Parachute
Mobile, they may have some ideas:

[http://parachutemobile.com/](http://parachutemobile.com/)

Of course it would also depend on things like weight limits on the balloon and
what won't interfere with the student research packages (or maybe even
collaborate with them?), but let's keep in touch!

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throw20102010
What I find most amazing about this isn't the image (although it's pretty
cool), it's the fact that a bunch of amateur astronomers[1] can locate a
satellite in space with no help- even after the satellite makes an unannounced
move. The US government literally spends billions of dollars to track things
in outer space, and a bunch of amateurs can do basically the same thing.
Granted, Space Fence tracks more and smaller objects, but the amateurs are
winning on the price/performance ratio.

To clear things up- ephemeris (orbit parameters) are published for many
satellites, but not for the X-37B. It had to be found by some educated guesses
and a lot of staring at the sky.

[1] To be fair, some "amateur" astronomers use very high end equipment.

~~~
jhayward
> _The US government literally spends billions of dollars to track things in
> outer space, and a bunch of amateurs can do basically the same thing_

There is a whole lot of difference between an amateur being able, once in a
blue moon, to track something and a military duty desk being able to track
_everything_ , _all the time_ , and get it imaged/located/whatever in seconds
to minutes, every time.

~~~
dsl
The X-37B also favors mobility over stealth.

Many US spy satellites are virtually untrackable because of the Vantablack
S-VIS paint they use, which reflects only .2% of the light that hits it. You
have to literally look for the missing stars that should be behind it.

Other sats make this even harder by hiding behind giant mirrors that reflect
empty space from a 45 degree angle down to earth.

~~~
adminu
I'd be interested in a source. I wonder how a giant mirror could persist in
space without being shattered by debris and other elements hitting it from
time to time.

~~~
daveslash
This is a patent for stealth satellite technology. It's not a mirror, per-se,
but it does demonstrate that there's interest in concealing satellites.
Additionally, I'd expect that anything that could "shatter" a mirror would
also be capable of shattering the entire satellite beyond operation; if we
assume that statement is true, then the fact that so many satellites remain in
service suggests that a mirror would also survive.

~~~
daveslash
I posted my above comment late last night after a long trip... I neglected to
include the patent URL. My apologies.

[https://patents.google.com/patent/US5345238A/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US5345238A/en)

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green-eclipse
Other coverage: [https://boingboing.net/2019/07/05/rare-image-of-us-air-
force...](https://boingboing.net/2019/07/05/rare-image-of-us-air-forces.html)

[https://www.space.com/x-37b-space-plane-skywatcher-
photo.htm...](https://www.space.com/x-37b-space-plane-skywatcher-photo.html)

And a previous HN story from 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14288036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14288036)

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gdubs
On the one hand it’s amazing what private companies, especially SpaceX have
been doing in the vacuum created after the end of the Space Shuttle. On the
other hand, it kinda bums me out that I grew up knowing we had this very
public space minivan and now we don’t. Or at least what we now have is a
secret military craft.

But yes, the ISS is awesome, there’s still great stuff happening in space
exploration. But I do miss the space minivan.

~~~
walrus01
I really don't feel sorry that the shuttle is gone, over the lifetime of the
program including all costs, it cost $1 billion per launch. The 1970s dream of
an affordable, reliable, speedily re-usable spacecraft was not achieved. It's
good that it's gone.

~~~
wongarsu
Also it was the most deadly launch system ever created, killing on average one
astronaut for every ten launches.

The combination of needing human crew for every single mission and not having
an launch escape system (something basically every other rocket had) wasn't a
great compromise.

~~~
walrus01
Of course I knew about both Challenger and Columbia, but I wasn't sure on the
total number of flights... Two quick google searches say 135 flights and 14
fatalities, which statistically is quite bad. All of the fatalities related to
Soyuz flights were, if I recall correctly, with very early versions that were
rushed to launch by arbitrary soviet political deadlines.

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anotheryou
I'm pretty sure it's oriented the other way around in the image (belly up).

Look at this image:
[https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hjkc.de...](https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hjkc.de%2Fx-37b-usaf-
otv5_720_361.jpg&f=1)

I think the black tiles are not visible on the photo, this makes the cargo bay
"protrude". The stairs on the tail than also begin to make sense.

------
DangerousPie
Wikipedia entry here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37)

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acoye
This is the perfect tool to physically temper with telecom satellites.

~~~
ggreer
No it’s not. Most comm sats are in geosynchronous orbit. This thing is in low
earth orbit. Only the Iridium constellation is within its range.

Most likely it is for messing with other countries’ spy satellites.

~~~
acoye
You are right, yet the `constellation` / `mesh` / `starlink` type telecom
service could be the new norm if it works out. Amazon made an FCC request
recently to launch its own thing.

Also, if sent to space with a more powerful launcher, technically it could
probably reach a Lagrangian point, even (slowly but efficiently) leave it. It
would then probably burn out on re-entry with to much velocity, that would be
the issue I'd say.

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bookofjoe
Try this link:
[http://spaceflight101.com/x-37b-otv-5/x-37b-otv-5-identified...](http://spaceflight101.com/x-37b-otv-5/x-37b-otv-5-identified-
in-orbit/)

------
duxup
So previously I believe the space shuttle style vehicle was thought to be
inefficient, this seems similar. Is the usage different here?

~~~
wongarsu
It's not really comparable to the space shuttle. It's about 30 feet long
(compared to the shuttle's 180 feet) and launches as a payload of a regular
rocket.

It has some similarities in its heat shield, the wings and the runway landing,
but as a tiny robotic vehicle that doesn't need fast turnaround because it's
in space for many months at a time many of the problems of the space shuttle
don't apply.

~~~
duxup
Ah, longer term flights seems like a big change in the equation.

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nashashmi
My understanding of this vehicle is that it can physically navigate in space.
With stop and go functionality.

~~~
diydsp
any idea why it seems the thruster is offside? [0]

Doesn't that complicate mobility/control?

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37#/media/File:X_37B_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37#/media/File:X_37B_OTV-2_02.jpg)

~~~
wongarsu
Probably to fit something else there.

The thruster can gimbal/pivot, and the software already has to measure the
current center of mass of the vehicle because payloads etc affect it enough to
make you go in circles. So accounting for an offset thruster might not even be
a software change since it's a parameter the software already has to find
automatically.

Also note how the main engines of the space shuttles are really far offset at
launch and fire at a weird angle to compensate.

