The mysterious American X-37B spaceplane will be launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket on December 10

The mysterious X-37B spaceplane of the US Space Force is almost ready for its seventh flight. The Space Force and SpaceX are “making final preparations” for the launch of the robotic X-37B scheduled for Sunday evening (December 10).

This was announced on December 7 by Space Force officials in an updated email.

The spaceplane is scheduled to take off atop a Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a 10-minute window that will begin at 20:14 EST (01:14 GMT on December 11).

The Space Force is believed to have two X-37B vehicles, both manufactured by Boeing. The spaceplanes are very similar to NASA’s old orbiters, but they are much smaller; both X-37Bs can fit inside the payload bay of a single space shuttle.

To date, the two X-37Bs have flown a total of six missions, each longer and more ambitious than the last. The latter, known as OTV-6 (Orbital Test Vehicle-6), landed in November 2022 after 908 days of orbiting the Earth.

It is unclear how long the upcoming OTV-7 flight will last; the Space Force has published few details about X-37B missions, as most of their payloads are classified. Some of this equipment is likely to be new intelligence tools; military officials have long stated that the X-37B is used primarily as a test bed for new technologies.

But the X-37B also carries some civilian research cargo. For example, one of the unclassified experiments being conducted at OTV-7 is Seeds-2, a NASA project that will test how seeds are affected by long-term exposure to cosmic radiation.

Source portaltele
You might also like
Comments
Loading...

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More