X-37B to Launch

The X-37B ready to be encapsulated in the Atlas V fairing at KSC. Credit: U.S. Air Force

The X-37B is basically a 1/4 size, fully-autonomous shuttle, including a cargo bay the size of my Tacoma's bed, that will hitch a ride to space later today aboard a ULA Atlas V-501 rocket. Launch is scheduled for 7:52 EDT and can be viewed on the ULA website. A bunch of different agencies have sponsored the X-37B over the years, first it was a NASA project, then DARPA, now it is run out of the USAF's Rapid Capabilities shop. Boeing Phantom Works built it.

While the payload and mission are tightly kept secrets, a lot is known about the X-37B itself. The super cool things about this mission from an engineering standpoint are the spacecraft's advanced silica thermal protection tiles and autonomous guidance system. At the end of the flight that guidance system has to fire the craft's main engine to drop the ship from orbit. The spaceplane will re-enter the atmosphere and make a high-speed landing at nearly 300 mph on the three mile long runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base. To do this it will be relying entirely on it's own autopilot, which gets input only from on-board gyroscopes, a GPS receiver, and an altimeter. How cool is that?

Feel free to speculate wildly about what the Air Force might do with the capability to release and capture satellites, stay on orbit for up to a year and land anywhere in the world within hours...