USA launches secret ship on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket – 12/28/2023 – Science

The US Armed Forces’ secret X-37B robot spacecraft took off from Florida on Thursday night (28) on its seventh mission, the first launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, with the potential to take it to an orbit of unprecedented altitude.

The Falcon Heavy, made up of three joined rocket cores, took off from its launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, with the launch broadcast live by SpaceX.

The launch took place after more than two weeks of failed attempts and delays. Three previous countdowns were aborted due to bad weather and unspecified technical problems, prompting ground crews to collect the spacecraft back to its hangar before continuing the flight.

Now the match comes two weeks after China’s robot space plane, known as Shenron, or “Divine Dragon,” was launched on its third mission into orbit since 2020, adding a new twist to the growing U.S.-China rivalry in space.

The Pentagon has released few details about the X-37B mission, which is conducted by the U.S. Space Force as part of the military’s national security space launch program.

The spacecraft, built by Boeing, is about the size of a small bus and resembles a miniature space shuttle, and is designed to deploy various devices and carry out technological experiments in long-duration orbital flights.

At the end of each mission, the spacecraft descends through the atmosphere to land on a runway, similar to an airplane. She has carried out six previous missions since 2010.

This Thursday’s mission marks the first launch aboard SpaceX’s most powerful Falcon Heavy rocket, capable of carrying even heavier payloads than the X-37B into space, possibly into geostationary orbit, more than 35,000 km above. from the earth.

The X-37B, also called the Orbital Test Vehicle, was previously limited to flights in low Earth orbit, at altitudes below 2,000 km.

The Pentagon has not disclosed how high the spacecraft will fly this time. However, in a statement last month, the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office said “mission #7” would involve testing “new orbital regimes, testing future space domain awareness technologies.”

Such comments have led industry analysts and amateur space trackers to speculate that the X-37B may be headed for a highly elliptical orbit around Earth or even a path that could take it close to the Moon, a region of space that has sparked growing interest from the Pentagon.

“Maybe this thing will head toward the Moon and deliver a payload,” said Bob Hall, director of space traffic monitoring company Comspoc, which analyzes the trajectories of orbital objects. The closer the spacecraft flies to the Moon, the more difficult it may be to return safely to Earth.

The X-37B also carries a NASA experiment to study how plant seeds are affected by prolonged exposure to the harsh radiation environment of space.

The ability to grow food in space has big implications for keeping astronauts nourished during future long-term missions to the Moon and Mars.

China’s equally secretive Shenron was launched on Dec. 14 by a Long March 2F rocket, a launch system less powerful than SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and believed limited to delivering payloads to low Earth orbit.

Still, Space Force Gen. B. Chance Saltzman told reporters at an industry conference earlier this month that he expected China to launch Shenron around the same time as the X-37B flight, in a gesture of competition.

“It’s no surprise that the Chinese are extremely interested in our spacecraft. We are extremely interested in theirs,” Saltzman said, according to statements published in Air & Space Forces magazine, a US aerospace magazine.

“These are two of the most observed objects in orbit while they’re in orbit. It’s probably no coincidence that they’re trying to match us in timing and sequence of this,” he added.

The planned duration of the X-37B’s last mission has not been disclosed, but it is assumed it will run until June 2026 or beyond, given the trend toward successively longer flights.

Its latest mission remained in orbit for more than two years before a return landing in November 2022.