The US Military’s secret unmanned mini space shuttle returned to earth on Friday.
Originally a NASA project, the X-37B became the military’s secret unmanned space shuttle in 2004. When the X-37B launched last April, no one knew what was really going on. Foreign media saw the launch as a signal of space militarization. Officials say the spacecraft is undergoing testing.
X-37B Unmanned Space Shuttle Lands
Here is a video of the launch on April 22, 2010:
With the spacecraft on the ground, what is next? Another X-37 will be completed and tested by 2011. However, these mini-shuttles cannot fill the void of NASA’s now vanishing shuttle program. The X-37B can only carry less than 1% of the payload the significantly larger Space Shuttles can, ruling out the military using this to do any heavy lifting in space.
X-37 before its launch, don't be fooled. It is only slight larger then a pick-up truck.
It would be interesting to see this platform used a robotic rescue platform. Launch the X-37 with an advanced robot on-board, capable of repairing or upgrading defunct satellites, sending supplies to space stations, and other tasks a smaller ship might be good at.
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