Little is known about the targets of the secret X-37B aircraft. Now the US military is releasing astonishing details about a mission target of their space glider.
The US military’s X-37B has been in space for ten months. It is the seventh use of the unmanned space glider developed by Boeing. As with previous missions, the US Space Force – the space division of the US armed forces – is keeping a low profile this time about the exact goals of the flight – until now.
In a statement, the authority is now providing a rare insight into a mission of the X-37B space glider. Accordingly, the aircraft should prepare for a so-called atmospheric braking (aerobraking maneuver).
The maneuver uses the friction of the Earth’s atmosphere to reduce the speed of a spacecraft. The process is used, among other things, to change the orbit of a spacecraft to save fuel.
Atmospheric braking is often implemented in multiple cycles to gradually reduce speed. This allows a spacecraft to be gradually moved into a more stable orbit.
According to the US Space Force, this is the first time that such a maneuver has been carried out with the X-37B space shuttle. Frank Kendall, Secretary of the Air Force: “This novel and efficient series of maneuvers demonstrates the Space Force’s commitment to achieving breakthrough innovations in the execution of national security missions in space.”
Atmospheric braking will be used to jettison a service module docked to the X-37B. According to the US Space Force, disposal should adhere to “recognized standards for the containment of space debris.” What this means exactly is not explained.
Among other things, the United Nations adopted space debris prevention guidelines in 2007 to reduce the risk of collisions between spacecraft and flying debris.
After the X-37B has completed the maneuver, the space shuttle should “resume its test and experimentation objectives,” it said. It is not known what these are. Before the seventh launch last December, it only said that “testing technologies for space perception and studying the effects of radiation on NASA materials” were part of the mission.
On its sixth flight, the X-37B set several records. With 908 flight days, it was the space glider with the longest time in space. The previous record was 780 days in orbit and was also set by X-37B. It is not known how long the current flight will last.