4 ms·

X-37B spaceplane 'spying on China'

• pohl 15y ago
  Some of the comments on this article are interesting, in that they note that the respective launch dates of the two missions would have to mean that USA-226 either anticipated Tiangong-1's orbit, or manoeuvred to track it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-226 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-226 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1
• cfwebdeveloper 15y ago
  agree
• ck2 15y ago
  Funny how we both fully fund China and spy on them at the same time. But no commerce with Cuba except leasing land for a prison. Oh and billions for secret military space shuttles is fine but no more civilian space program.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• davidklemke 15y ago
  I did some rough calculations using some online tools to determine the distance between the X-37B and Tiangong-1 and as far as I can tell they're on opposite sides of the earth to each other. I'd also hazard a guess that the USA has far better tools both on the ground and in orbit to track Tiangong-1 than the X-37B, especially with its rather limited payload capability. Full blog post if you're interested: http://www.therefinedgeek.com.au/index.php/2012/01/06/is-the-x-37b-tracking-chinas-efforts-in-space/ http://www.therefinedgeek.com.au/index.php/2012/01/06/is-the...