X-37B: How Much is Valet Parking Worth?
The U.S. “space plane” is in the news again. This time, a poorly researched article in Spaceflight, the journal of the British Interplanetary Society, claimed that the X-37B was likely being used to spy on the Chinese Tiangong spacecraft from a nearly matching orbit.
The claim was based on an incomplete understanding of celestial mechanics and was thoroughly debunked—the spacecraft cross orbits only twice a day, and even then at very high speeds.
This claim is yet another effort to make sense of the X-37B. The Air Force is secretive about its purpose and budget, and observers have made vigorous efforts to come up with some mission that fits. The unique capability of the space plane—what makes it a “space plane” rather than a satellite or space capsule—is its ability to return to earth in a controlled manner and land on a runway.
(Source: allthingsnuclear)
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