X-37B flight 2

[Dr Mordrid]

The second X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), the U.S. military's mini space shuttle, arrived at the Atlas V assembly hangar this morning for mounting atop the launcher. Launch is scheduled for March 4 from KSC's Launch Complex 41, right next door to SpaceX's LC-40.

Already mounted in the nose cone for launch, the OTV 2 spaceplane was hauled across the Cape overnight from the Atlas V's Vertical Integration Facility. Over the next 2 weeks a full array of combined systems testing and final readiness reviews will be conducted before giving a clearance for the bird to fly.

OTV 2 will be conducting classified missions, but the "word" is that it is developing technologies for an optionally robotic/manned military spaceplane that would be larger than X-37B.

[Evildead666]

Military spaceplane.
China will be keeping the crosshairs finely tuned on this one

[Dr Mordrid]

Good luck - the shootdowns they've done were on fixed inclination targets in low orbits. These things have the fuel reserves and engines to change altitude and orbital inclination rapidly and significantly. This was demonstrated several times during the first mission, and it took a lot of work by the satellite watchers to find the damned thing. Being made largely of carbon composites it also gives radar fits. Heat shield is not metal but advanced ceramic tiles.

I would also point out that this critter is from the Boeing Phantom Works, and they also are making the airframe for SNC's Dream Chaser spaceplane - also made mostly of composites. One would be an idiot to think ones flight results are not being put into use in the other, especially the avionics, heat shield, solar/LiION power system and robotics. Also, Dream Chaser's launcher is the Atlas V, a booster already certified as a military launcher, is being human rated, and also used for X-37B.

That military spaceplane could well be a Dream Chaser variant. It's deep into development, the right size and uses the right launcher. Its modular hybrid engine pods could also be quickly swapped out for ones using the X-37B's hydrazine monopropellant engines, or the already human rated Rocketdyne AR2-3 which burns hydrogen peroxide and JP-8 jet fuel (both deliver higher performance.)

[Dr Mordrid]

She's up....


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