X-37B and Prompt Global Strike Launch

At 7:52 p.m., April 23rd, an Air Force Atlas 501 rocket shot the capsule enclosed X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle into space from Cape Canaveral. Resembling a small space shuttle, the OTV was built in Boeing’s famed Phantom Works.

The OTV will serve as an “on-orbit” laboratory for new sensors and other high-tech devices that will later be built into satellites. Its payload is highly classified, but the Air Force says test flights aboard the retrievable OTV will prove out new technologies before they are shot into space to stay.

The 29-foot OTV is powered by a combination of lithium ion batteries and solar panels. Air Force deputy undersecretary for space programs, Gary Payton, told reporters: “Probably the most important demonstration is on the ground, see what it really takes to turn this bird around and get it ready to go fly again.”

The turnaround goal is 15 days.

As for how long it will stay up there: “In all honesty, we don’t know when it’s coming back for sure,” said Payton. “I don’t think we’ve set any specific goal, but I would think handling this bird more like an SR-71 and less like a routine space launch vehicle would be a good objective,”

With all the focus on the launch of the X-37B, the launch of a Minotaur IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force base in California received less attention.

The Minotaur IV reportedly carried the prototype of the new Prompt Global Strike weapon that can hit any target around the world in less than an hour.

The PGS is designed as the conventional weapon of the future. Reportedly, it could hit Osama bin Laden’s cave, an Iranian nuclear site or a North Korean missile with a huge conventional warhead.

This post contains excerpts from the DefenseTech article, Air Force Launches Reusable X37-B Spaceship, April 24th, 2010, and The Times article, Launch of secret US space ship masks even more secret launch of new weapon, by Michael Evans, April 24th, 2010.

For more, visit DefenseTech.