X-37B lands (finally)

[TimothyC]

Air Force space vehicle comes in for a landing

by Tech. Sgt. Julie Weckerlein
Air Force Public Affairs Agency

6/16/2012 - WASHNGTON (AFNS) -- The Air Force's unmanned, reusable space plane landed in the early morning of June 16 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., a successful conclusion to a record-setting test-flight mission that began March 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, one of two such vehicles, spent 469 days in orbit to conduct on-orbit experiments, primarily checkout of the vehicle itself.

"The vehicle was designed for a mission duration of about 270 days," said Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the X-37B program manager. "We knew from post-flight assessments from the first mission that OTV-1 could have stayed in orbit longer. So one of the goals of this mission was to see how much farther we could push the on-orbit duration."

Managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the X-37B program performs risk reduction, experimentation, and concept of operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies. The X-37B mission is the longest space mission only after the NASA Discovery shuttle program.

The 11,000-pound state-of-the-art vehicle, which is about a fourth the size of the shuttle, allows space technology experts to continue sending up experiments, with results returning safely to Earth for study.

"With the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, the X-37B OTV program brings a singular capability to space technology development," McIntyre said. "The return capability allows the Air Force to test new technologies without the same risk commitment faced by other programs"

The vehicle was initially a NASA initiative, but was transferred to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2004. When it first launched in 2006, it was lauded for its cutting-edge technologies, such as the auto de-orbit capability, thermal protection tiles, and high-temperature components and seals.

"The X-37B's advanced thermal protection and solar power systems, and environmental modeling and range safety technologies are just some of the technologies being tested," said McIntyre. "Each mission helps us continue to advance the state-of-the-art in these areas."

Just short of 200 days longer than the original planned mission length.

That's a lot of time in space.

[Sea Skimmer]

It is impressive, but satellites do ten times as long on a regular basis so the question now becomes, how much repair and refit does it need before it can orbit again. If it can't be refitted economically its purpose will be very limited to spending more money on the Tactical Satellite Program and skipping spending money on an economical air launch system for X-37B.

[Hawkwings]

Satellites go up ten to fifteen times as long without any thought for coming back. Maybe the thermal protection tiles deteriorate slowly in space, or the hydraulics slowly boil off, or there becomes too much micrometeorite damage to stand. There's a lot of systems you can take out (and therefore reduce complexity) when you don't have to return to the ground.

[General Zod]

Satellites go up ten to fifteen times as long without any thought for coming back. Maybe the thermal protection tiles deteriorate slowly in space, or the hydraulics slowly boil off, or there becomes too much micrometeorite damage to stand. There's a lot of systems you can take out (and therefore reduce complexity) when you don't have to return to the ground.

On the other hand, if your mission goals change it's a bit more difficult to swap out parts on a satellite than it is something that can return to the ground.

[Sea Skimmer]

But that was exactly the point, the realistic turnaround time is yet to be known, as well as the realistic costs involved, it may not work out favorably. The point of the tactical satellite program meanwhile is to design common satellite bus's that can accept different sensors as required, and then be quickly orbited by small low cost boosters, as weight is around 1,000lb, not unlike what we'd expect from an X-37B payload. Sure you can't reuse them, but if a war is on the satellite is just another kind of ammunition. The prototype tactical satellites have been in the 75-100 million dollar range; series production ought to be lower. We don't know what X-37B cost to prototype since all the real work was done black, and the boosters used were extremely expensive (200 million class) for reliability , and are not representative of what we'd expect a fully operational system to use.

The biggest advantage of X-37B is thought to be that it has a lot more cross range capability in orbit then typical small satellites, but how true that is and if it is worth it is another unknown. Of course, it also possible to have convergence between roles, and have an X-37B rapidly placing small satellites in orbit.