The vehicle made by Boeing resembles a miniature space shuttle (representative)
After weeks of false starts and delays, the SpaceX team on Thursday once again prepared to launch the top-secret X-37B military space robot on its seventh mission, the first aboard a rocket capable of taking it to a higher orbit that never.
The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch at night from the NASA Space Center. Kennedy at Cape Canaveral, on Florida’s Atlantic coast, in a 10-minute launch window starting at 8:07 pm EST (01:07 GMT Friday).
A series of three countdowns to launch were cut short earlier this month due to bad weather and unspecified technical problems, forcing the ground crew to tow the spacecraft to a hangar before making a final attempt at launch. launch.
This comes two weeks after China’s reusable space robot, known as Shenlong, or “Divine Dragon,” launched on its third mission to orbit since 2020, marking a new chapter in the growing US-China rivalry in space.
The latest weather forecast for Thursday’s flight called for an 80% chance of favorable conditions for takeoff.
The Department of Defense has released some details about the X-37B missions conducted by the US Space Force as part of the military’s National Security Space Launch program.
The Boeing-built vehicle, the size of a small bus and resembling a miniature space shuttle, is intended to carry various payloads and conduct technological experiments during long-term orbital flights. At the end of its mission, the ship returns to the atmosphere and lands on a runway, like an airplane.
Since 2010 it has flown six missions, the first five launched on an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and the last, in May 2020, on a Falcon 9 rocket provided by the Elon Company SpaceX. Moss.
Future missions will launch on SpaceX’s more powerful Falcon Heavy rocket, capable of carrying heavier payloads than the X-37B farther into space, possibly into geosynchronous orbit, more than 22,000 miles (35,000 km) above Earth.
The X-37B, also called an orbital test vehicle, was previously designed to fly in low Earth orbit, at altitudes below 2,000 km.
“New regimes and semi-orbitals”
The Pentagon has not said how high the astronauts will fly this time. But in a statement last month, the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office said Mission 7 will involve testing “a new orbital system as part of future space domain awareness technology experiments.”
The X-37B also conducted NASA experiments to study the effects of long-term exposure to harsh radiation conditions in space on plant seeds. The ability to grow crops in space has important implications for maintaining food supplies for astronauts on future long-term missions to the Moon and Mars.
China’s equally mysterious Shenlong launched into space on December 14 aboard a Long March 2F rocket, a launch system that is less powerful than SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and limited in carrying payloads to low Earth orbit.
However, Space Force Gen. B. Chance Saltzman told reporters at an industry conference earlier this month that he expected China to launch Shenlong around the same time as the upcoming X-37B flight, which he said was a competitive move.
“The Chinese are very interested in our spacecraft. We are very interested in them,” Saltzman said in a speech published by Air & Space Forces Magazine, an American aviation magazine.
“These are the two most frequently observed orbiting objects while in orbit. “It’s probably not a coincidence that they tried to match us in terms of timing and order of execution,” she said.
The X-37B’s final mission duration plan has not been made public, but it will likely last until June 2026 or beyond, given its pattern of longer consecutive flights.
The final mission remained in orbit for more than two years before landing again in November 2022.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
2023-12-28 20:01:05
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