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A Supersecret Spacecraft Comes Back to Earth After Two Years.
By Justin Bachman October 14, 2014
The U.S. Air Force has kept an unmanned space shuttle in orbit for the past two years, and it seems no one without security clearance knows what it’s been doing up there.
The*X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, which*can enter orbit and land without human intervention,*is scheduled to touch down this week—the best guess is sometime on Tuesday—at Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara, Calif. The landing will mark completion of the program’s third and longest mission, which was launched on Dec. 11, 2012. The Air Force has two such spacecraft for these low-earth orbit missions, all of which are classified, as are the precise launch and landing times.
“The mission is basically top secret,” says Captain Chris Hoyler, an Air Force spokesman. The X-37B program came from technologies developed by Boeing (BA), NASA, the Air Force, and the*Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).
The X-37B “is clearly a military program that no one has necessarily felt the need to justify politically,” says Laura Grego, a senior scientist in the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She says the spacecraft’s likely missions could probably be handled by satellites and other platforms at lower cost to taxpayers.
More http://www.businessweek.com/article...s?hootPostID=84db004efc15c27da2b1237f2307bc83
By Justin Bachman October 14, 2014
The U.S. Air Force has kept an unmanned space shuttle in orbit for the past two years, and it seems no one without security clearance knows what it’s been doing up there.
The*X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, which*can enter orbit and land without human intervention,*is scheduled to touch down this week—the best guess is sometime on Tuesday—at Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara, Calif. The landing will mark completion of the program’s third and longest mission, which was launched on Dec. 11, 2012. The Air Force has two such spacecraft for these low-earth orbit missions, all of which are classified, as are the precise launch and landing times.
“The mission is basically top secret,” says Captain Chris Hoyler, an Air Force spokesman. The X-37B program came from technologies developed by Boeing (BA), NASA, the Air Force, and the*Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).
The X-37B “is clearly a military program that no one has necessarily felt the need to justify politically,” says Laura Grego, a senior scientist in the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She says the spacecraft’s likely missions could probably be handled by satellites and other platforms at lower cost to taxpayers.
More http://www.businessweek.com/article...s?hootPostID=84db004efc15c27da2b1237f2307bc83
