Secret Spaceplane, Mystery Mission

1. The X-37B sits on the runway of the Vandenberg Air Force Base on Dec. 3, 2010.

The Air Force’s secret space plane has been up in orbit for nearly 500 days—a space endurance record. But nearly a year and a half into the mission, the Pentagon still won’t say what the X-37B is doing up there, or when it might come back.  

The U.S. Air Force boosted the robotic X-37B atop the nose of an Atlas-5 rocket in December 2012. Since then it’s orbited the Earth thousands of times, overflying such interesting places as North Korea and Iran.  

Similar to the Space Shuttle in appearance, the diminutive X-37B is about a quarter the size of the old shuttles. But there are major differences. Lacking a crew, the spacecraft has no cockpit windows. The X-37B has a payload bay about the size of a pickup truck bed.

And while the original Space Shuttle could stay in orbit for up to 17 days—a limitation largely due to the needs of the crew—the first X-37B mission, OTV-1, spent 225 days in space under the guidance of Air Force space flight controllers at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado. The second mission, OTV-2, handily doubled that number, clocking 469 days in orbit. OTV-3 is currently at 482 days and counting. 

Eventually—nobody knows when—the pudgy space plane will glide back down to Earth like the Space Shuttle it resembles, rolling to a stop on an Air Force runway in California.   

The X-37B began as a NASA project to build a small, unmanned space plane. NASA handed the project over to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2004, but after budgetary problems the program was transferred to the U.S. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which continues to manage the X-37B program. Boeing’s Phantom Works division built two of the X-37B spacecraft.   

The U.S. Air Force will not comment on what kind of missions the X-37B does in space. The service, which doesn’t mind talking about the space drone as a technological achievement, clams up when discussing actual missions.  

Rumors abound. One of the most popular is the X-37B can sneak up and eavesdrop on other satellites. The idea does have appeal, but skeptics point out the U.S. already has other smaller, harder to track satellites to do just that.  

Another rumor is that the X-37B can, like supervillian Ernst Blofeld’s giant clamshell satellite in You Only Live Twice, saddle up to the satellites of other nations and mess with them. Though theoretically possible, the X-37 would have to be launched into an orbit similar to the target’s, and the X-37B’s size makes it easy to track. Even amateur satellite spotters can track the X-37B, and it would be obvious to everyone who had stolen a satellite.   

The most interesting—but least likely—rumor is that the X-37B is some kind of orbital bomber, capable of nailing targets from on high. There’s not a whole lot of evidence to back that theory up.  

Brian Weeden, a former Air Force officer with the Space Command’s Joint Space Operations Center and now at the Secure World Foundation, believes that the X-37B is primarily a test bed for new technologies. “I think it is primarily an ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) platform for testing new sensor technologies or validating new technologies.” Weeden tells The Daily Beast. “The current OTV-3 on orbit has basically been in the same orbit since launch, with only the occasional maneuver to maintain that orbit. That’s consistent with a remote sensing/ISR mission.” 

The X-37B is probably testing technologies that might be incorporated into the spy satellites of the future. New cameras, radars, and other sensors could be tested in space and then brought back to Earth for study. That’s much better than designing them on Earth and then building an enormously expensive spy satellite reliant on untested technology.  

That doesn’t mean that OTV-3 isn’t spying on other countries—it probably is. OTV-3’s orbit takes it over all sorts of interesting places, including North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China. The space drone’s sensors are likely could well be getting workouts against real-world targets, from North Korean missile facilities to shipyards where China’s next aircraft carriers are being built.  

And although it’s only a guess, one can surmise that, based on the amount of time the X-37B is spending in orbit, those sensors are apparently working pretty well.  

If the X-37B is just a test platform, why won’t the Pentagon open up about it? “I don’t think the secrecy surrounding the X-37B program is an attempt by the U.S. government to hide anything nefarious, but rather that it’s driven by bureaucratic inertia,” Weeden says. Addressing the rumors, Weeden points out, “The secrecy surrounding the program makes it difficult for the U.S. government to respond meaningfully to those claims and debunk them.” 

The X-37B is a relatively bright spot during a fallow period for the U.S. space program, and Boeing and the Air Force are capitalizing on the program’s success. Boeing is converting the former Orbiter Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, where Space Shuttles were maintained in-between spaceflights, to a one-stop facility designed to refurbish landed X-37Bs and prepare them for spaceflight again. 

Boeing has also proposed a larger X-37C, which would be capable of carrying up to six astronauts to and from orbit. This project is likely to get a second look as relations with Russia, the only country currently capable of sending astronauts into space, sour over the situation in the Ukraine.  

In the meantime OTV-3 continues to drift overhead, silently orbiting the Earth, doing whatever it does. It’s anyone’s guess when it will be coming back.

@Thedailybeast

Tentera US telah membelanjakan USD3.3. juta dalam misi pencarian MH370- U.S. military has spent $3.3 mln on Malaysia Airlines search - Pentagon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has spent more than $3.3 million on the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and has put in place plans that nearly double the original $4 million available for the hunt, a Pentagon spokesman said on Wednesday.

Army Colonel Steve Warren said the Defense Department spent $3.2 million between March 8 and March 24 on the initial search for the Boeing 777-200ER, which went missing more than three weeks ago during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"This paid for ships steaming and helicopters flying, helicopters and planes," Warren told reporters.

Those funds came from $4 million that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel initially authorized in spending from the Pentagon's Overseas Humanitarian Disaster and Civic Aid fund, he said.

As the search for the missing plane shifted to the southern Indian Ocean, the Pentagon's contribution to the effort narrowed to flying Navy P-8 surveillance planes out of Perth, Australia.

Funding for the effort then shifted to the Navy's Operations and Maintenance budget. Between March 25 and March 31, the Navy spent about $148,300 to fly its P-8s in the ocean search mission, he said.

The Pentagon also responded to a Malaysian request to provide underwater search equipment, sending a Towed Pinger Locator as well as a Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle. Both devices can be used to listen for pinging sounds emitted by the plane's flight data recorders.

Warren said no specific limit had been set on the funding for flying the P-8s. He said the Pentagon had set an initial budget of $3.6 million for the underwater search equipment being provided by the Naval Sea Systems Command. That gear is still en route to the search area.

"That's how much we've budgeted for the pinger and the Bluefin," Warren said. "We don't have an exact cost yet because it's going to vary depending on how much it gets used."

Up to 10 planes and nine ships from a half dozen countries on Wednesday scoured a stretch of ocean roughly the size of Britain, where the Malaysia Airlines jetliner is believed to have crashed.

Authorities have not ruled out mechanical problems as causing the disappearance, but say all the evidence suggests the plane was deliberately diverted from its scheduled route.

(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Paul Simao)

@Reuters

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Bayangkan berapa banyak yang perlu Kerajaan Malaysia belanjakan bagi misi pencarian MH370 yang akhirnya dikatakan disabotaj dan dihijack, walaupun sudah hamp;ir 30 hari misi pencarian dilakukan samada di Laut China Selatan, Koridor Utara dan yang terkini di Koridor Selatan.

Misi yang tidak ketahuan ini tentunya menyulitkan kerana mencari sesuatu tanpa ada petunjuk yang jelas, namun ianya perlu dicari demi menjaga maruah negara dan juga memenuhi tuntutan ahli keluarga penumpang MH370 yang perlukan bukti fizikal sebagai bukti bahawa ahli keluarga mereka sememangnya hilang.

Petunjuk bagi MH370 disabotaj tentunya ia menjadi 'sulit dan rahsia kerajaan' untuk dimaklumkan kepada umum tentang apa sebenarnya yang berlaku dan siapa dalangnya. Mungkin ianya dalam tindakan pihak perisikan kerajaan Malaysia dalam menyelesaikan isu ini.

Semoga doa dan solat hajat seluruh umat Islam di Malaysia dan seluruh dunia dimakbulkan moga tuhan tunjukkan jalan keluar kerana tindakan dan apa yang perlu dilakukan sekarang sememangnya menelan kos yang amat besar demi maruah negara. Ianya juga dapat menjimatkan kewangan kerajaan dari duit dan hasil rakyat demi kelangsungan Malaysia tercinta.