The mysterious reusable spacecraft, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), has landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center after orbiting Earth for 908 days.
The roughly two-and-a-half-year journey broke the spacecraft’s previous record of 780 days and now means it has flown more than 1.3 billion miles and 3,774 days in space. The Boeing-made spacecraft landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5:22 a.m. ET, November 12, 2022.
This is its sixth mission since X-37B’s first launch in 2010. All were launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Station, Florida. The spaceplane is a collaboration between the Office of Rapid Capabilities of the United States Department of the Air Force and the United States Space Force. It is based on NASA’s X-37 program that began in 1999 before it was transferred to DARPA in 2004.
This mission was carried out aboard the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in May 2020.
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While the Space Force doesn’t reveal much about its previous payload, it does reveal that it carries a FalconSat-9 that is still in orbit and provides Academy cadets with hands-on experience. before joining the mission.
The missions also carry a service module – a ring that is attached to the rear of the vehicle allowing for more experiments to be carried out. The module will be processed over the next few weeks “according to best practices”, by Space Force.
Experiments held on this sixth mission include the Naval Research Laboratory’s Photoelectric Radio Frequency Antenna Module, which harnesses the sun’s rays beyond Earth’s atmosphere and aimed at transmitting energy to the ground in the form of radio frequency microwave energy.
The United States Air Force Academy’s FalconSat-8 was developed in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory and will be deployed in October 2021.
NASA experiments on this mission include Materials Exposure and Technological Innovation in Space (METIS-2), which includes heat-controlled coatings, printed electronics, and radiation shielding materials. candidates.
NASA scientists will evaluate the materials after they have spent more than 900 days in orbit and compare the observed effects with ground-based simulations, confirming and improving the accuracy of the observations. model of the space environment, according to the United States Space Force.
NASA has also used this mission to explore the effects of space exposure on seeds over a long period of time. Scientists want to know how resistant and vulnerable the seed is to steric pressures, especially radiation. This will inform the production of space crops for future interplanetary missions and the establishment of permanent inhabited bases in space.
“The X-37B continues to push the boundaries of testing, supported by an elite government and industry team,” said Lt. behind the scene”.
“The ability to conduct experiments in orbit and get them safely home for in-depth analysis on the ground has proven valuable to the Air Force and the scientific community. The addition of tissue- The service module on OTV-6 allows us to host more tests than ever before.”
Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing Space and Launch, said: “Since the X-37B’s first launch in 2010, it has broken records and provided our nation with capabilities unparalleled for rapidly testing and integrating new space technologies.”
