A photo from open sources
Pentagon spacecraft X-37B broke its own record – 470 days of continuous flight in low Earth orbit. This is the third account and its longest flight during the mission, which is shrouded a secret.
Some analysts believe it is intended to support American soldiers in war zones. Others believe that the device was launched into space to spy on the new Chinese space station Tiangong.
X-37B was launched on December 11, 2012 using a launch vehicle Atlas V from Cape Canaveral. Little is known about the spaceship, which is launched into orbit by a rocket, but lands as space shuttle planning down to earth.
The ship itself is like a NASA shuttle, but much smaller. Dimensions X-37B are about 8.8 m in length and 2.9 m in height, its span wings slightly less than 4.6 m. Weight of the device at the time of launch is 4990 kg.
Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell reports that the main feature of this unit is the ability to long autonomous flying in space. In addition, he believes what is happening on it testing some experimental sensors for the National intelligence control, for example, hyperspectral thermal imager or something like that.
In May 2011, amateur astronomers were able to calculate the orbit the first flight of the X-37B, which took place over the territories of the North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, reinforcing suspicions, that the vehicle was being used for observations.
Other analysts believe the U.S. Air Force is simply demonstrating amazing X-37B fuel efficiency and will keep it in space for as long as possible to protect its from budget cuts.
A photo from open sources
Rockets
