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SpaceX will launch the X-37B on a Falcon Heavy rocket Dec. 7
- edgyquant 3y agoI want to know what this thing is so bad. Also wonder what are the odds that space force has put people into space and brought them back at this point, and what is the timeframe they envision for doing such things if not.
- newZWhoDis 3y agoIt’s an anti-proton collector
- networkchad 3y agoIt’s really not that special in my eyes. It’s a miniature space shuttle, minus humans. The purpose is 100% classified but you can guess the usual suspects (advanced sensor testing, experimental payloads, testing space warfare / asset manipulation, etc). I really doubt they have put humans inside of it, given that they have kept it up there for year-long plus periods over its lifetime.
- influx 3y agoWhat makes it not special? As far as I know, this is the only spacecraft ever created with these capabilities....
- networkchad 3y ago[dead]
- wkat4242 3y agoYeah it's way too small to be human rated especially because it just doesn't have the space for consumables for more than a day or so.
- justrealist 3y agoThere's almost no way, unless I'm missing something. This thing is in orbit for over a year at a time, even the ISS can't support people that long without resupply.
- dylan604 3y agoSadly, there will be people that wholeheartedly believe that humans have been aboard in direct conflict with this kind of evidence.
- imglorp 3y agoPlus people miss the ship is very small. The payload bay is only 4x7 ft and 225 kg. It looks like a Shuttle and people think it's another Shuttle but it's only 1/4 the size.
- none_to_remain 3y agoIt's all the Shuttle the military needs
- maxerickson 3y agoAir force participation increased the design size of the space shuttle.
- NikkiA 3y agoOnly because they thought they were going to be deploying pre-KH11 satellites that needed film/equipment retrieval/renewal.
- wkat4242 3y agoI thought it was more to actually launch the newer keyholes and to bring them back in case of repair. After all one of those cost as much as an aircraft carrier, you don't want to scrap one for a minor problem.
- imglorp 3y agoThere's some hints about the kind of experiment payloads have flown: not all classified, not all military, some mundane long duration materials and radiation exposure studies it sounds like. https://spacenews.com/x-37b-spaceplane-to-carry-dod-and-nasa-experiments-in-upcoming-mission/ https://spacenews.com/x-37b-spaceplane-to-carry-dod-and-nasa...
- jjoonathan 3y agoRight, and the classified ones are probably more like "what does space radiation do to uranium/plutonium/LiD/etc" and less like "if we take the Mexico Mummified Alien Bodies into the Van Allen belts, do they come to life?" EDIT: I'd still watch the movie though.
- actionfromafar 3y agoWould definitely watch that movie.
- api 3y agohttps://m.imdb.com/title/tt0084796/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0084796/ Pretty close. Got the MST3000 treatment too, but honestly I kind of liked it. Campy but eerie. Could be remade really well.
- dylan604 3y agoHaha! We were just talking about remakes of movies rarely working out so well as far as making the story any better. I guess they make out well in enough in regards to the producers making money. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38234220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38234220
- twic 3y agoFilmed in an actual university by the look of it. It's funny how low budget films sometimes look more realistic than big budget ones, because they can't afford to build sets, and have to use the real thing. The brief biology lab scene in Primer is the same.
- schiffern 3y agoThe X-37B operates in GEO, which is the only hint we need. Missions objectives will include satellite inspection, signal interception, and (unacknowledged) tampering / destruction. Payloads will be geared for medium-range surveillance (small telescope for optical/thermal imaging at a couple hundred km), ELINT (radios and antennas for snooping / hacking), and probably a manipulator arm or two to "reach out and touch someone." They probably have some sort of kinetic and/or electronic pulse weapons, but of course it would be highly classified and deniable. Missions are 100% unmanned. I'd argue that's the whole point of the X-37B program: to develop technology to perform ~all the classified mission capabilities we could do with Shuttle, except unmanned.
- zitterbewegung 3y agoI would think that the Mission objectives are broader than that in you can basically swap out any mission payload that would be too costly to launch and develop a whole satellite for and task it quickly.
- morkalork 3y agoSo... not the totally innocent "next gen technology testing platform" as often claimed, eh?
- T-A 3y ago> The X-37B operates in GEO So far it hasn't. Out of the six missions so far [1], the highest one only reached altitude 404 km [2]: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37#Operational_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37#Operational_histor... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-299 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-299 Edit: or maybe 444 km [3]: [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-212#Altitude_and_ground_track_resonance_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-212#Altitude_and_ground_tr...
- schiffern 3y agoThanks for the correction. I had it confused with the GSSAP birds.[0] Mission and payload is still basically the same, but targeting LEO spy satellites. Russia has similar aspirations (and probably capabilities).[1,2] [0] https://breakingdefense.com/2022/01/space-force-plans-multiple-hosted-payloads-for-geo-belt-monitoring/ https://breakingdefense.com/2022/01/space-force-plans-multip... [1] https://time.com/5779315/russian-spacecraft-spy-satellite-space-force/ https://time.com/5779315/russian-spacecraft-spy-satellite-sp... [2] https://npolicy.org/securing-our-military-satellites-against-shadowing-spacecraft/ https://npolicy.org/securing-our-military-satellites-against...
- Shawnj2 3y agoPretty unlikely- you don't actually need to put people in space for most military purposes, at least not anymore. Most human spaceflight missions can be done far cheaper by not using humans, especially when we have computers and AI as good as we have today. If the military needed humans in space to do something they would probably just have it be a classified part of a normal astronaut's mission or something
- DylanSp 3y agoIt's arguably never been necessary to have humans in space (EDIT: for military purposes). The USAF's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program was cancelled back in the late sixties because even then, reconnaissance satellites worked well enough that the added complexity and cost of a crewed station wasn't worth it.
- Shawnj2 3y agoI think there are real benefits to having people in space for scientific purposes but not really for military ones. Plus a lot of human space travel is preparing for an eventuality that we will have a moon or mars base which will need people to run it.
- DylanSp 3y agoForgot to specify that I meant military purposes specifically, just edited it. I think the necessity of humans for scientific purposes is arguable, but it's definitely not as clear-cut.
- Shawnj2 3y agoIf you assume humans will never live on a non earth planet then it has literally 0 value lol but if we set up a moon or mars base in the future it will hold a lot of value
- edgyquant 3y agoYeah you don’t need astronauts in space, but wouldn’t you want to be prepared to have them way before you needed to
- vardump 3y agoPerhaps its only purpose is to keep adversaries guessing?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nickik 3y ago> I want to know what this thing is so bad. Its a small space plane used for materials and operations testing.. > Also wonder what are the odds that space force has put people into space and brought them back at this point, Literally zero. > and what is the timeframe they envision for doing such things if not. Not sure why Space Force would be interested in that. Not anytime soon.
- bloopernova 3y agoIt's collecting Astrophage.
- ge96 3y agogreat book
- qingcharles 3y agoMovie in production now.
- wkat4242 3y agoIt's not even big enough to carry people. It looks like a space shuttle but it's tiny compared to it :)
- thinkcontext 3y agoWhat do you think these people would be doing?
- edgyquant 3y agoProbably nothing, testing out systems that can support them
- warner25 3y agoI was going to say that of course a bunch of Space Force people have already been put into space, but I just looked and it appears that none of the active duty military astronauts have actually been transferred to the Space Force; they're all still with their original services. I don't know if the plan is to keep things that way or not. So far there has only been one round of astronaut selection since the founding of the Space Force. But the older services still have all the aviators, flight engineers / officers, and flight surgeons who have traditionally been competitive for selection.
- tekla 3y agoThe Space Force is concerned with space assets, not literally soldiers in space. Source: Multiple friends who work in Space Force.
- sam_bristow 3y agoBut what about hand-to-hand space combat! Are you telling me there's no market for my astronaut ghilli suits?
- warner25 3y agoSure, but the same is true of the Army. And yet there are several US Army officers (literal Soldiers) who are active astronauts. I'm just surprised that they haven't been transferred into the Space Force yet along with the many other space operations folks from each service that have been transferred to comprise the bulk of the uniformed Space Force "Guardians." Edit: I found one. (https://www.nasa.gov/people/nick-hague/ https://www.nasa.gov/people/nick-hague/) "In 2021, Hague voluntarily transferred from the United States Air Force to the United States Space Force."
- ge96 3y agoFantasy thoughts SAR x-ray (what) Or in orbit x ray of other satellites (emitter and receiver on other side). I just think any kind of legit scanning has to be against the object being scanned. Muon tomography too
- basementcat 3y agoChina is suspected to have a space plane with similar capabilities. https://www.space.com/china-space-plane-lands-may-2023 https://www.space.com/china-space-plane-lands-may-2023
- Klathmon 3y agoI'm so curious what is causing this to launch on a Falcon Heavy! Previous launches of the X-37B have been on a Falcon 9 with an RTLS landing, and now this one is using one of the largest launchers there is. What is it doing with all that delta-v!?
- DylanSp 3y agoI'm curious how much delta-v there X-37B itself has; the Heavy can definitely get it to GEO, but can it get itself back down from there?
- grecy 3y agoOver on /r/spaceX everyone assumes it's going into a might higher orbit so they can eventually test re-entry with a lot more energy. It seems the only logical answer... unless for some reason it's really heavy this time.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ImaCake 3y agoDoes that imply nuclear weapons? It's not obvious to me if a payload of nuclear warheads would be that heavy to justify the delta-V though.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoOrbital kinetic impactor weapons - a quiver of giant heavy rocks - would be an extremely valid reason for a extra spectacularly big launch. I'm not sure why x37b would be the ship for it, other than that it's proven technology with good manuverability. Feels like most any old satellite full of rocks could do though. Ran into this next bug future article talking about what a ridiculous death-weapon Starship could be. https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/11/future-us-hypersonic-bomber-is-hiding-in-plain-sight.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/11/future-us-hypersonic-b...
- vardump 3y ago
- einpoklum 3y agoThe X-37B is a military vessel, and the US already has a civilian space-exploration agency in NASA, suggesting that the payload is indeed of a military nature. It is absolutely abhorrent to see that the nation-states of planet Sol III are resuming the misguided attempts to take their petty intra-planetary conflicts into space. I feel like in one of those Star Trek episodes where one alien group is trying to get a leg up on the other by petitioning the Federation ship in orbit to help them against their quite-similar enemies.
- stevehawk 3y agoresuming? Has humanity stopped since 1957?
- wnevets 3y agoWill there be a surge in injuries to workers over the next month? https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-m...
- vardump 3y agoHow does it compare to Boeing, Lockheed, etc.?
- likeabatterycar 3y agoBoeing and Lockheed are union shops IIRC. Any major injuries like those mentioned in the article would mean a major shitstorm and stand-down.
- hotnfresh 3y agoThe magic of unions, when it comes to safety, is that they let employees feel safe not just reporting safety issues, but outright rejecting unsafe requests. Even in union shops, unsafe directives are issued, against policy and law alike, but unlike non-union shops, workers in union shops know someone’s got their back if they call it out and/or say “no”.
- tekla 3y agoWell Boeing is unable to launch anything nor deliver on their end of Commercial Crew, so maybe they need a good excuse to not have to do anything for a while.
- Robotbeat 3y agoBoeing outsources a lot more because of that, leading to the time when the Starliner subcontractor had to get an amputation.
- BlackjackCF 3y agoFrom the article: > The 2022 injury rate at the company’s manufacturing-and-launch facility near Brownsville, Texas, was 4.8 injuries or illnesses per 100 workers – six times higher than the space-industry average of 0.8. So it doesn’t seem good…
- sneak 3y agoPreviously Musk declined to enable Starlink over Crimea to prevent SpaceX hardware from being used to wage war (the Ukrainians asked him to enable it for a drone strike). Now, I am told DoD is in charge of where Starlink is geofenced (and the Ukrainians in the military are happy, which suggests he was overruled), and SpaceX is launching a full/heavy X37B in the middle of a proxy war with Russia (who has recently tested antisatellite weapons). I worry this will subject future SpaceX/Starlink hardware to retaliation should certain geopolitical conflicts escalate. I also wonder what the odds of FAA approval of Starship tests being gated on SpaceX doing whatever the military wants are. It’s not like the Americans with a monopoly on orbital weapons are gonna let someone just walk up and usurp them because they built the hardware. Unfortunately stories like this won’t ever get told in my lifetime, if ever.
- thinkcontext 3y agoUSG is SpaceXs most important external client. I doesn't take some conspiracy to explain them launching a national security asset like the X37b.
- sneak 3y agoEvery sale is, literally speaking, a conspiracy between buyer and seller to do a deal. A conspiracy doesn't need to be nefarious to be a conspiracy. I think there is a lot more on the bargaining table between SpaceX and the US military than dollars, given the geopolitical implications of the level of easy access to orbit that SpaceX currently exclusively possesses. No other organization on Earth could cost effectively build something like Starlink today, due to F9 reusability. Euphemising the X37B as a "national security asset" doesn't change the fact that SpaceX has historically only launched reconnaissance for the US military and not weapons (and that Musk had explicitly avoided getting involved in supporting weaponry, at least until it seems he no longer could). This being a change to the status quo, of course, presumes that the need for FH indicates an X37B payload that is heavy (or an orbital insertion that requires more energy). Both of these suggest (but do not guarantee) weapons systems, either from payload weight requirement or orbital insertion requirement (or both). This is, of course, an assumption, and it's possible that SpaceX still hasn't committed to launch any weapons, and that the X37B is just heavier because of its research payload(s) (or it's also reconnaissance and they just want to put it in a specific big-delta-v-requiring-orbit for better surveillance). It's also possible it's chock full of munitions and SpaceX doesn't get to keep trying to research how to get to Mars if they don't help the US military continue to do what they do on Earth.
- black_13 3y ago[dead]