
Secretive military spaceplane lands in Florida after record-long orbital flight - anigbrowl
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-military-spaceplane/secretive-military-spaceplane-lands-in-florida-after-record-long-orbital-flight-idUSKBN1X60PH
======
osipov
My trusted close relative used to do classified work on "Buran", the Soviet
Union's answer to the United States Space Shuttle program.

According to him, the USSR military developed Buran to match what they saw as
the space warfare capabilities that USA gained with the Shuttle. Unlike the
ICBMs, the shuttles decoupled the event of the payload launch from event of
the payload delivery, i.e. bombing. The early shuttle missions demonstrated
the ability to "dive" to an orbit from which they could deliver a nuke
directly to Red Square and then return back to the low Earth orbit. Shuttles
could also perform attack missions against targets in the Earth's orbit,
approaching and destroying USSR's satellites as a prelude to a nuclear war.

Buran was designed to perform both of these missions. Unlike the shuttles,
Buran could perform them while 100% unmanned. Until this X-37B flight, US did
not have a public demonstration of a technology matching what USSR had with
Buran in the late 1980s. Given the "hot peace" nature of the contemporary
relationship between US and Russia, it is not surprising that US would want to
demonstrate that it went above and beyond what USSR accomplished in space
warfare. X-37B does that.

If you are wondering about the 2-year mission for X-37B: when Buran launched
in 1980s US immediately started speculating that the "unmanned" capability of
Buran was just another lie by USSR. Can't say the same about about X-37B
considering that it was in orbit for twice the time of the longest manned
mission.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Your friend is mixing together some stuff in telephone game style.

While there were some military applications to the space shuttle, it rather
emphatically was not some sort of covert space bomber. It's ability to glide
and boost itself back into orbit is very limited as it can't store a ton of
propellant. While gliding it needs to be in a level slightly nose up posture.
How do you think it's supposed to release a bomb in that pose? It rather
plainly has a thermal protection system on the bottom, and nothing usable as a
bomb bay.

The whole idea is just preposterous.

The military applications of the shuttle were the ability to launch and
capture satellites, as well as to potentially act as a reconnaissance
platform. The X-37B largely continues those same missions.

~~~
brennankreiman
Bart Hendrickx and Bert Vis, Energiya-Buran: The Soviet Space Shuttle, 2007

>The IPM studies were conducted under the leadership of Yuriy Sikharulidze and
Dmitriy Okhotsimskiy, two of its leading scientists.

>The IPM studies focused on the Shuttle’s possible use as a bomber, more
particularly its capability to launch a nuclear first strike against the
United States. Efraim Akin, one of the institute’s scientists, later recalled:

>“When the US Shuttle was announced we started investigating the logic of that
approach. Very early our calculations showed that the cost figures being used
by NASA were unrealistic. It would be better to use a series of expendable
launch vehicles. Then, when we learned of the decision to build a Shuttle
launch facility at Vandenberg for military purposes, we noted that the
trajectories from Vandenberg allowed an overflight of the main centers of the
USSR on the first orbit. So our hypothesis was that the development of the
Shuttle was mainly for military purposes. Because of our suspicion and
distrust we decided to replicate the Shuttle without a full understanding of
its mission. When we analysed the trajectories from Vandenberg we saw that it
was possible for any military payload to re-enter from orbit in three and a
half minutes to the main centers of the USSR, a much shorter time than [a sub-
marine-launched ballistic missile] could make possible (ten minutes from off
the coast). You might feel that this is ridiculous but you must understand how
our leadership, provided with that information, would react. Scientists have a
different psychology than the military. The military, very sensitive to the
variety of possible means of delivering the first strike, suspecting that a
first-strike capability might be the Vandenberg Shuttle’s objective, and
knowing that a first strike would be decisive in a war, responded predictably”
[14].

~~~
baybal2
On other hand, US had own intelligence screwups that ended with "self
disinformation."

USSR military planners had a plan to very intentionally design Alfa and Papa
class submarines with very bizarre specs, and uncertain strategic role with an
intent to set American strategic planners on a wrong path.

They were intentionally let to sail close to population centres, with a lot of
subassemblies given to civilian manufacturers to encourage leaks.

Amazingly, 30 years later we got to know that the plan actually worked for
them. From what is known now, news of Alfa's existence truly did set the
military, CIA, and the executive branch into a contention in late seventies.

------
falcor84
"The statement that this @usairforce X-37 flight deployed small satellites is
alarming, since the US has not reported those deployments in its UN
Registration Convention submissions. This would be the first time that either
the USA or Russia has blatantly flouted the Convention."

I'm also alarmed by this. I wouldn't want Star Wars (neither Lucas's nor
Reagan's) to become our future.

~~~
kbenson
It may be that those deployments were replacing existing satellites. I'm sure
other nations know when the vast majority of satellites were originally
deployed, which gives them a rough estimate of what technology they might
have. Being able to subvert this assumed knowledge by changing what the
satellite is is quite possible more useful than launching a new one and having
them both up. Even if what the space plane did was tracked so there's not
likely to be any surprises, in-place upgrades might have their own uses.

If that's the case, and it's just replacing existing satellites, they're still
tracked accurately under that convention. Not that the USAF would say either
way unless pressed by national powers, as the ambiguity helps their mission.
It also helps internet blow-hards that like to take relatively small amounts
of information and construct narratives they can lambast. It's entirely
possible the USAF deployed new satellites, or replaced some satellites, or did
nothing like that and the messaging is posturing or disinformation.

If it was doing stuff with satellites, I'm actually more interested in how it
got inventory to do so over a two year time span. Did it drop to lower
altitudes to refuel and get more satellites to deploy/replace/upgrade?

~~~
roywiggins
> If it was doing stuff with satellites, I'm actually more interested in how
> it got inventory to do so over a two year time span. Did it drop to lower
> altitudes to refuel and get more satellites to deploy/replace/upgrade?

1) CubeSats can be very tiny, and perhaps it was only releasing babysats for
part of the mission, or at long intervals

2) surely we'd have noticed if there was a space fuel depot,

2b) if there was, why would it need to find it at a lower altitude?

~~~
kbenson
> 2) surely we'd have noticed if there was a space fuel depot

> 2b) if there was, why would it need to find it at a lower altitude?

Well, it's a space plane, so I was thinking of a more exotic variation of
conventional air refueling, but upon further thought that seems very unlikely
as if it was that easy to get from land to the refueling point and from the
refueling point to space, we'd see that as the usual way to get to orbit
instead of rockets (or rocket attached ships). I don't spend a lot of time
thinking about rocketry and orbit unless in a discussion about it, so this
wasn't immediately obvious to me initially.

That said, it's possible that some satellites actually contained extra fuel
for future use when deployed, either in them or as a separate attached
payload. In that case, there wouldn't be one large space fuel depot, but
possibly many small ones.

------
gsmith2
Given Reuters cite the air force as their source, would anyone hazard theories
as to why they're so happy to announce the movements of a supposedly secret
plane? It's pretty much in the news every time anything happens involving it,
which seems quite intentional.

Is it perhaps just some kind of announcement of a capability to foreign
countries?

~~~
Valgrim
Anything in orbit can (and is) actively tracked by amateur and professionnal
astronomers around the world. The secret aspect of the X37B plane is it's
mission. Nobody knows what it was doing up there. Hypotheses range from
carrying weapons, spying, or doing experiments. In any case, it is certainly
also used as propaganda, a show of strength.

~~~
beerandt
And I believe even the pro trackers lost it at least once, until it was
rediscovered by accident. Which adds intrigue.

Not counting foreign intelligence, obviously.

------
f2f
There was this amazing article in 2010 about "chemical compounds i will not
work with". Tetrafluorohydrazine was one of them:

[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/th...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride)

and mentions briefly that hydrazine is produced at los alamos for national
security purposes.

~~~
wolf550e
Almost all spacecraft (including satellites) use hydrazine (MMH, UDMH or
Aerozine 50) for rotating around itself to keep pointing in the right
direction (see attitude control, reaction control system).

When used as a bi-propellant, hydrazine is usually combined with N2O4, which
is also super toxic.

It is not just the military that uses these things. Everyone uses it because
it is the best performing high thrust (not ion engine) non-cryogenic
(storable) propellant. It being hypergolic (self igniting) is a bonus for
reliability.

The military actually switched to solids for ICBMs and SLBMs.

The F-16 has a hydrazine APU, and I would not be surprised if the F-35 does
the same thing.

~~~
agurk
> The F-16 has a hydrazine APU, and I would not be surprised if the F-35 does
> the same thing.

The F-16 has an EPU not an APU, i.e. an Emergency Power Unit vs an Axillary
Power Unit. Lacking an APU is an exception when it comes to jet aircraft and
necessitates a few changes. Relevant here is that an APU can provide power in
an emergency, so the role is played by the hydrazine powered EPU for the F-16.

This makes hydrazine somewhat more of a rational choice for something you
expect to use rarely. If it were expected to be frequently used then it would
have to be frequently refilled and that would necessitate all ground crew
wearing the full body hazmat suits you see in the photo for the X-37b here as
well as many other complex safety precautions.

The F-35 has a conventionally jet fuelled APU[0] so it has no need for an EPU
or hydrazine.

Interestingly Concord didn't have space for an APU (due to the shape of the
empennage and placement of a rear fuel tank). I have seen pictures of a
hydrazine powered EPU on one of the prototypes, but this was never going to
make it into service as certifying carrying something as toxic as hydrazine -
even back then - would be nigh on impossible. This is the question that starts
the most epic thread about Concord[1] (warning - you may get sucked into
reading all 103 pages!)

[0]
[http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=12192](http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=12192)

[1] [https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-
question.htm...](https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-
question.html)

~~~
kpozin
I think you meant "Auxiliary Power Unit," not "Axillary Power Unit." Most
planes lack armpits :)

~~~
agurk
Ah yes, good spot! And I got to learn a new word[0] today :)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axilla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axilla)

------
mulcahey
SpaceX webcast of the launch in 2017 [1]

Some info on the payload at 6:30 mark

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M6Zvi-
fFv4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M6Zvi-fFv4)

------
breatheoften
Why do the ground crew in picture have hazmat suits?

~~~
lykr0n
Hydrazine is hella toxic

~~~
perl4ever
From Wikipedia:

"The hydrazine antidepressants...were discovered and initially marketed in the
1950s and 1960s. Most have been withdrawn due to toxicity..."

------
killjoywashere
Not sure if anyone has noticed, but these things seem to be setting 2+ year
records every few months. So ... how many are up there?

~~~
pardavis
"There have been five X-37 orbital missions. The spaceplane's first mission,
USA-212, was launched in April 2010 and returned to Earth in December 2010. A
second X-37 was launched on mission USA-226 in March 2011 and returned in June
2012. The third mission was USA-240, which launched in December 2012 and
landed in October 2014. The fourth mission, USA-261, launched in May 2015 and
landed in May 2017. The fifth and latest X-37 mission, USA-277, was launched
on 7 September 2017, and broke the record for the longest X-37 mission, after
718 days in orbit, on 27 August 2019, finally landing on 27 October 2019 after
780 days in orbit."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37)

------
parvenu74
Lots of theories about what that vehicle does... the one I like the best is
that it intercepts "enemy" satellites and reprograms them. Of course, what
comes around goes around and it would only be a matter of time before the
Chinese do that to us if that's actually one of this vehicle's missions. A
more likely scenario is that it is doing maintenance on and/or bringing home
some of our own stuff -- as well as being an observation platform in its own
right.

~~~
eternalny1
I don't know about reprogramming satellites but its possible it just grabs
them and forces them to fall out of orbit. That's easier and quite effective.

Or it's just a moveable spy satellite that can hover over whatever it needs
to.

Funny you mention the Chinese doing that to us. I just finished Snowden's book
and he mentioned how he only learned what the NSA was doing after having to
research what the Chinese were doing. Turns out, same thing!

~~~
catalogia
The only place a satellite can 'hover' is directly above the equator in a
geostationary orbit. Anywhere else and the best you can do is a highly
eccentric orbit with a high inclination so you get lots of "hang time" over
the target area, but that also means being very high up. From what I
understand the X-37b was tracked by amateur astronomers to have a reasonably
high inclination this time around, but an almost circular orbit.

Traditional spy satellites have very high inclinations because this lets gives
them coverage of more of the planet (as the planet rotates beneath them.) The
X-37 has thusfar to my knowledge not flown at a severely high inclination,
from what I understand the most recent launch was somewhere around 54 degrees,
and previous flights were lower. For reference the ISS is around 52 degrees.

The figures are all imprecise and the X-37b supposedly has the delta-v budget
for relatively dramatic inclination changes, but even so 54 degrees is very
far away from where earth-observing spy satellites traditionally are.

> _its possible it just grabs them and forces them to fall out of orbit. That
> 's easier and quite effective._

Honestly that seems neither easy, effective, nor subtle. To grab and deorbit
something like that you'd need to grab it in such a way that let you thrust
through it's center of mass which doesn't seem easy to do for a few reasons
(not least because the distribution of mass inside the target satellite may
not be known.) And since spy satellites can be massive, you'd need to burn a
lot of fuel to do it. It's conceivable they're doing something a bit trickier,
like slapping a time delayed ion thruster onto the side of victim satellites
which would then slowly deorbit the target after the X-37 is long gone, but
I'd still wager on the victim figuring out what was going on. Such anomalous
thrust is something that would be noticed.

------
K0SM0S
This is my take away: _“The sky is no longer the limit for the Air Force and,
if Congress approves, the U.S. Space Force”_

I used to be worried that the current trendiness of Space in the media would
be a fad, gone by 10 or even 2 years from now. Such statements make me hope
that — _finally_ — people who matter have recognized both the value and
inevitability of space. After that, it's all just a matter of time...
_wink@sagan_

~~~
jessriedel
The Space Force/Core is not a proposal to significantly change US national
security capabilities in space. It is merely a re-org of the command structure
to put the existing infrastructure under a more specialized chain of command.
Such command re-orgs can have practical implications, of course, but it is in
no way some sort of novel realization that space is important for the
military.

~~~
K0SM0S
Thanks a lot for the explanation / clarification, helps me qualitatively
appreciate events.

> it is in no way some sort of novel realization that space is important for
> the military.

I know, and didn't mean to imply that it was; I said "used to" because my fear
is long gone, and such statements now pile up, like _+1_ 's I guess. _(Upvotes
are currently winning by a fair margin!)_

I would however suggest that having a centralized Space command is a great
leap towards building presence, solving big problems. Speaking as an EU
citizen; but I'd vote for that, and with my wallet too.

------
ChuckMcM
So what do you called an unmanned spacecraft? We've got unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs), and unmanned submersible vehicles (USVs), and and unmanned
land vehicles (ULVs), are they "unmanned orbital vehicles" (UOVs?) or maybe
unmanned rocket vehicles? (URVs?)

~~~
ohitsdom
Since you bring up naming, man/unmanned really needs to be dropped for
crewed/uncrewed. NASA technically adopted this in 2006, but they still mess it
up. Here's more info on their terminology, as well as other options you
brought up:

[https://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2015/100509...](https://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-
lakdawalla/2015/10050900-finding-new-language.html)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Thank you for that, pretty much exactly what I was wondering.

Presuming "uncrewed" gets added to the dictionary I would expect that to
prevail as the antonym for "crewless" might reasonably be "crewful", which
also sounds weirder than "uncrewed"/"crewed".

------
peter303
A reusable space plane has always been popular with the military. There were
several secret military space shuttle missions. At times the military talked
of owning one of the shuttles. They keep this dream alive with unmanned space
planes.

------
Animats
People may be overthinking why the USAF flies the thing. If it's in active
service, the USAF flies it once in a while. Otherwise they mothball it or
retire it. Aircraft which just sit there don't stay in operating condition.

~~~
monocasa
I mean, it's been in orbit for more than two years. That doesn't really lend
itself to a test flight to make sure it works.

~~~
ahje
Unless they're testing it's durability?

~~~
ryanmercer
Or more likely slowly taking high resolution photos of foreign satellites
and/or trying to sniff any RF coming off of them.

------
perlgeek
A time record of an uncrewed vehicle and orbit is... not really news worthy.

I mean, you put it up there, and if the orbit is high enough, it simply stays
there, no action required.

This doesn't seem to be much more impressive than a satellite that stays
operational for 10+ years in orbit (and there are quite many of those).

~~~
nkrisc
And those satellites burn up in the atmosphere when their useful life has
expired. This is notable because it returned to Earth in one piece.

~~~
perlgeek
Yes, but that has been done before.

The newsworthy portion seems to have been that it's been longer in orbit than
before, and then returned.

Is it really all that impressive that it stayed 2 years in orbit before
returning, instead of 1.5 years?

I'm sorry, I just don't see what the story is here.

~~~
sq_
I think the important part is the "spooky factor" of "this highly maneuverable
space plane can stay on orbit for two years doing who knows what".

The implication is that the US military has a vehicle that can stay on orbit
for as long as they want and move around to do anything from deploying secret
satellites to spying to disabling enemy spacecraft without anyone else
necessarily knowing what happened.

------
low_common
That ship looks incredibly cool. I assume it's un-manned.

~~~
stickydink
Unmanned, yes. It looks like it would be a pretty miserable two years of your
life if it were!

[https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-
Sheets/Display/Article/1045...](https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-
Sheets/Display/Article/104539/x-37b-orbital-test-vehicle/)

> The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, is an experimental test program to
> demonstrate technologies for a reliable, reusable, unmanned space test
> platform for the U.S. Air Force

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Unmanned, yes. It looks like it would be a pretty miserable two years of
> your life if it were!_

Nothing a Kerbal couldn't handle.

------
galaxyLogic
I think the secret has been so far that they had a driverless plane? That
means the plane itself could be used as a weapon?

~~~
detaro
Previous long-term missions of it also had media coverage, so not a secret.

------
azeotropic
This seems like an unlikely coincidence — if I’m reading this other link
right, it had been flying over Syria.

[https://www.heavens-above.com/orbit.aspx?satid=39025](https://www.heavens-
above.com/orbit.aspx?satid=39025)

Edit: obviously I read it wrong. Still a strange coincidence though.

~~~
kanox
It's in low earth orbit so ground track changes every ~90 minute orbit. It
flies over all countries with latitudes.

~~~
ggm
I always assumed it had an ability to relocate. I guess sustained movement in
a 2y mission is hard, you have to budget for non-replaceables to make thrust
work, ion thrusters consume stuff too.

I kind-of get it, that for a sufficiently timed orbit, it sees all places..
eventually. Being able to relocate means you can be where you want to be,
without predictable periodicity.

~~~
Cogito
It's hard to explain without calling out to Kerbal Space Program, but it's
really hard to figure out what you mean by 'able to relocate' in the context
of orbital flight.

Your orbital period is determined by size of your orbit, and the difference
between that and the earth's rotation causes your land track to precess. For
most this means your land track will eventually be over every possible point.
Raising or lowering your orbit will let you find a 'flyover' intercept in
fewer orbits, but it will still take time to get there. Hard to do accurately
and you normally want to keep that fuel around for boosting your orbit when it
degrades due to atmospheric drag.

Other kinds of orbital manoeuvres could be used, but they are even more
expensive and less likely to get you were you want to be (as long as you are
in an inclination that passes over your desired target).

The main reason for this is that orbits are characterised (pretty much
exactly) by your position/velocity pair. Every orbit your position and
velocity will repeat, absent any external forces. Modelling any acceleration
as instantaneous (which is pretty close) you can see that you can only ever
directly change your velocity. Accelerate prograde and your orbit will be
raised _on the other side of your orbit_ ; when you complete one of your new
orbits you will be back in the exact same location, but with your new speed.

~~~
ggm
_but it 's really hard to figure out what you mean by 'able to relocate' in
the context of orbital flight._

I mean make a change of plane in unpredictable ways. You can't just scoot
sideways for no apparent reason, clearly orbit means what it says. But the
point would be to make changes of orbit at cost, to get somewhere faster than
waiting for the orbit you are in, to get there.

(height and speed over a point on the ground being assumed to be less
important than actually being over it, when you want it to be over it)

