US drone back on Earth after nearly two years in space
AFTER a nearly two-year sojourn in space, the US military drone X-37 B is back on Earth, fuelling wild ideas about its mystery mission.
Looking like a small version of an old NASA space shuttle, the craft touched down on Sunday in Florida, ending a 718-day voyage around the Earth, the US Air Force announced.
Just over 9 metres long and with a nearly 5-metre wingspan, the X-37 B was blasted into low orbit atop a rocket.
Since its first flight in 2010, it has sparked all kinds of speculation about its real purpose.
Some think it might be a space-based bomber that could strike objectives on Earth at a moment’s notice. Others suspect it is a potential “killer satel- lite”, capable of destroying or damaging enemy satellites.
Or perhaps it is a super spy plane, orbiting Earth to keep watch on enemy territory.
Fears the world is on the brink of an arms race in space is behind some of those theories.
Weapon of war?
Satellites are crucial to the functioning of national economies as well as military operations, and the US, China and Russia are all thinking about ways to defend them against attack. No doubt they are also looking at ways to attack their adversaries’ satellites.
In 2015, the mysterious behaviour of a Russian satellite fuelled speculation Moscow was developing attack satellites capable of manoeuvring in space to zero in on other satellites.
But many experts doubt the X-37 B is the prototype for a true weapon of war or espionage.
“The X-37 is the size of a pickup truck – it would be difficult to have an effective weapon on board,” says Victoria Samson, an expert with the Secure World Foundation, an advocate of sustainable space development.
Moreover, the X-37 B would not be very manoeuvrable once in space, because its only source of power are solar panels.
“Generally speaking, to manoeuver up in orbit requires a tremendous amount of fuel. So I can’t imagine that they would be doing a lot of manoeuvering,” Samson said.
Mark Gubrud, a physicist and expert on military space technologies at the University of North Carolina, says that the idea that it is a manoeuverable spy satellite doesn’t make much sense either.
“It has very little manoeuvre capability in orbit, and it can’t reach high altitudes, only low Earth orbit,” he said in an email.
“If you want to make a stealthy, manoeuvring satellite, you will not weigh it down with wings and landing gear and make it so visible from Earth that even amateurs are able to track it.”
The X-37 B’s fourth flight was spotted six days after its launch in 2015 by a network of amateur satellite trackers, according to the website Spaceflight101.com.
It disappeared for several months in 2015 following a change in orbit, and again in February 2017 after another manoeuvre, but was later found again, the website said.
In reality, experts today think the X-37 is more likely a test bed rather than a potential weapon, just as the Air Force said it was in one of its few public state- ments about the system.
They think it is being used to test sensors and equipment in space that can then be brought to the ground to see how they have performed.