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In the event it was required, the Edwards Air Force Base landing strip provided a back-up runway, the destination for shuttle orbiters when the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) is unavailable due to weather constraints.<\/p>\n
The X-37B is the newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft. Managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO), the X-37B program performs risk reduction, experimentation and concept of operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s landing culminates a successful mission based on close teamwork between the 30th Space Wing, Boeing and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office,\u201d said Lt Col Troy Giese, X-37B program manager from the AFRCO. \u201cWe are very pleased that the program completed all the on-orbit objectives for the first mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
OTV-1\u2019s de-orbit and landing mark the transition from the on-orbit demonstration phase to a refurbishment phase for the program. A second flight is already in the planning for sometime in 2011.<\/p>\n
The X-37 was developed by Boeing, originally as part of a NASA programme. In 2004, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency took over the programme, and in 2006 the US Air Force began development of the X-37B derivative for military applications.<\/p>\n
Space Technology
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/A94.jpg\" "\\"A94\\"")
Originally scheduled for launch aboard a Space Shuttle, the X-37B was moved to a Delta II in the aftermath of the Columbia accident. In this configuration the Delta II would have flown without a payload fairing, which raised concerns over the aerodynamics of the vehicle and led to the decision to launch on the larger Atlas V.<\/p>\nThe X-37B is 8.9 metres (39 feet and 3 inches) long, has a wing span of 4.5 metres (14 feet and 11 inches), and stands 2.9 metres (9 feet and 11 inches) high. It has a mass at launch of about 5,000 kilograms (11,000 pounds). The spacecraft is powered by lithium ion batteries, which were recharged in orbit by gallium arsenide solar arrays.<\/p>\n
It was launched from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station by the ULA Atlas V AV-012, which was the first Atlas to fly in the 501 configuration \u2013 featuring a five metre diameter payload fairing, no solid rocket motors, and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.<\/p>\n
Images via USAF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US Air Force\u2019s X-37B has successfully returned back to Earth on Friday morning, landing at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 9:16am GMT. Also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle 1 (OTV-1), its maiden voyage involved 220 days on orbit, conducting experiments and testing its systems, before carrying out the first autonomous re-entry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4277,1011],"class_list":["post-40585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-usaf","tag-x-37b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}