Top-secret space ship returned home after two years of flight

In the past two years to orbit the Earth, circling unmanned Shuttle launched the U.S. air force. His true purpose of being in space you know only the persons with admission to state secrets. This week experimental orbital plane X-37B, able to independently go into orbit, was about to land on one of the California military bases.

As writes the edition of Bloomberg Businessweek, landing the X-37B marks the completion of the third and longest mission, which was launched in December 2012. At the disposal of the U.S. air force are two such Shuttle, and both are designed to perform low-orbit flights.

"Mission top secret" — commented on in the American armed forces.

The X-37B is experiencing a technology developed by Boeing, NASA, DARPA and the air force. According to Boeing, the US air force uses the X-37B to explore the technology reusable Shuttle in long-term space goals. The military called the X-37B platform for testing of advanced thermal protection systems, solar power, environmental modeling, Autonomous control and landing, and control algorithms.

The military say they do not plan to create a manned version of X-37B. Length of the Shuttle is 8.9 meters height – 2.9 meters. In appearance, the X-37B is similar to the already discontinued space shuttles NASA, but five times less their size. Its cargo compartment is also opened in the space. The first mission of X-37B ended in December 2010 after nearly eight months in orbit.





Principal investigator of the Program on global security Union of concerned scientists (Union of Concerned Scientists) Laura Grego is confident that the X-37B has a military program that should not be publicized. According to her, the Shuttle works out technologies that save American taxpayers money.

Analyst Marco Caceres of the Teal Group believes that the air force is likely to be interested in space observation platform, able to maneuver in orbit satellites faster. Management of perspective research programs in the field of defence is also working on a hypersonic space plane XS-1, is able to provide fast access to space and delivery of cargo to orbit the Earth. The cost of running such a system, DARPA plans shall not exceed $ 5 million. As stated last year, "quick, affordable and regular access to space is critical to the activities of the Ministry of defense".

Regardless of what the X-37B does in space, the military plans to continue to develop this program. Earlier this month NASA announced agreement to provide the US air force two hangars at the Kennedy Space center in Florida to prepare the X-37B to the output space. The Shuttle is placed in orbit with the disposable launch vehicle Atlas V production of United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The military also plan to hold the landing of X-37B in Florida, which will save money on transit and preparation for the next flight.





American taxpayers want to know what their money is spent. Online users put forward a variety of assumptions: the hidden satellite tracking to kinetic weapons to defeat the purposes of the earth from space.

It is worth noting that the us military have long been studying the possibility of using hypersonic weapons launched from the Ground. In August of this year, the States conducted testing of promising hypersonic vehicle AHW, which had been under development for several years. According to official start arms failed.

According to military analyst, a former employee of the American strategic research center John's Arcilla, delivery to the orbital space weapons and space forces is accompanied by huge financial costs which amount to trillions of dollars. However, this weapon system can hit targets in all regions of the world in just a few minutes.

Source: hi-news.ru