Another mission of secret military unit of the American X-37B is now over. At 17:45 local time (June 17, 4:45 MSK) after 15 months of free flight in low Earth orbit module landed on the runway of the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Note that for the first time about the upcoming landing was announced 10 days ago, but when it was the military unit sent to prison, remained unknown.
Journalists at the base to illuminate the landing X-37B was not invited, but online Vandenberg a couple of hours after landing there was a short video to illustrate the landing. The first part of the 80-second spot is recorded using an infrared camera and it shows how the automatic landing system X-37B, the remaining approximately 35 seconds show the unit, located on the runway Air Force Base.
Officially, the landing or the results of the military mission accomplished nothing to report.
Mini-shuttle X-37B, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle-2 (OTV-2) was launched into space on March 5, 2011 with the U.S. Air Force base at Cape Canaveral in Florida. This flight was the second program X-37B, the first lasted about 9 months and was completed in 2010. About OTV-1 mission is also not reported. The unit was launched in April 2010 and served 225 days in orbit, against 469 days in OTV-2.
Despite the detailed information on the dates of flight, the essence of this program is not reported. Officially, the U.S. Air Force said that the objectives of the project, as well as details about the technical equipment OTV-2, are classified. This secrecy, of course, irritated a number of countries. In particular, China, which believe that the X-37B - a kind of space-based weapons, or a component of the U.S. military space program.
Externally, the tasks of X-37B is hard to judge: The unit looks like a decommissioned space shuttles, but it is smaller in size - 8.8 meters long and 4.4 meters wide. Weight of the machine is 5 tons, built X-37B was in the company of Boeing.
Official comments on the U.S. military also shed no light on the program, as most of the applications - is talking a little about what the application of new technological developments and testing of new technologies. With respect to X-37B representatives of the U.S. Air Force recognized that the fact that the secrecy of the program raises concerns in some countries, particularly in China and Russia. These countries see that externally X-37B looks like the development of the previously announced program to deploy space weapons in orbit. In many ways, these statements are political overtones, but also reduce the level of anxiety I#39;m also not inclined - says Brian vision, technical advisor for-profit association of Secure World Foundation.
