The US military’s X-37B unmanned spacecraft blasted into space Thursday night aboard SpaceX’s massive Falcon Heavy rocket for another secret mission involving a “groundbreaking” experiment.
The spacecraft took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for its seventh flight – two weeks after an earlier scheduled launch was delayed due to technical problems and strong storms.
It was the first time the X-37B was launched from the Falcon Heavy, which is far more powerful than previous rockets that have propelled reusable spacecraft, and is capable of sending them into higher orbits than ever before.
The X-37B’s latest mission is expected to last several years, just like the previous two-and-a-half-year flight, which ended when it landed at the Kennedy Space Center a year ago.
Space Force officials offered only vague descriptions of the tests and experiments the X-37B would conduct.
“The X-37B test included operating in a new orbital regime, experimenting with space domain awareness technology and investigating the effects of radiation on NASA materials,” the Space Force said in a statement.
The X-37B launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Thursday night for another secret mission two weeks late due to technical problems and strong storms. Joe Marino/UPI/Shutterstock
Space Operations Chief General Chance Saltzman previously explained that the flight, dubbed OTV-7, will conduct a “groundbreaking” experiment that will “equip the United States with knowledge to enhance current and future space operations.”
Some experts have speculated the ship was looking for a threat from a hostile country’s satellite.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall did not mention specifics, but praised the efforts of the Space Force.
Space Force officials would not say how long the X-37B will be in orbit or what is on board, saying only that it is carrying NASA experiments that hope to measure the effects of radiation on materials. Joe Marino/UPI/Shutterstock
“This is a remarkable event, and I think about the teamwork over the decade that has led to revolutionary improvements in the capabilities of space travel,” he said in a statement.
The X-37B was first launched in 2010, so far logging more than a decade in orbit. It is built by Boeing and resembles NASA’s space shuttle, but is smaller in size.
The Pentagon has previously used the X-37B to test some of its new technology, including small solar panels designed to convert solar energy into microwaves, which could one day allow energy harnessed from space to be beamed back to Earth, the Washington Post reported earlier. December.
The X-37B has also been used to deploy small satellites — although it remains unclear what exactly these satellites do.
The unmanned ship is equipped with an autonomous landing system. It takes off vertically like a rocket, but lands horizontally like an airplane.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
