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X-37B


Kerbal01

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10 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Buran-B Orbital Bomber

I never thought i'd say something like this, but suddenly I am thankful that the USAF forced NASA to put those massive wings on the Shuttle. Wingless shuttle/buran is such an ugly monstruosity

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Just now, SpaceFace545 said:

why is everything from Russia also designed to carry nukes, have they ever just chilled.

(Tries to recall an American rocket not derived in some part from a military one or not using a Thiokol's SRB, useless for civil needs).

Upd.
Falcon.
nd Starship. Oops, Starship is also a P2P dropship.

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16 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

(Tries to recall an American rocket not derived in some part from a military one or not using a Thiokol's SRB, useless for civil needs).

It's politics, not militarism in that case. This explains most of what you need to know about large projects, and has been true since the Washington Administration's initial contracts for the first USN frigates—they were built in different yards in different states, and used materials from states that were not involved in construction (at the time they were the single largest US government expense ever). It's why SLS and Orion brag on social media about having contractors in literally every state.

 

33 minutes ago, Beccab said:

I never thought i'd say something like this, but suddenly I am thankful that the USAF forced NASA to put those massive wings on the Shuttle. Wingless shuttle/buran is such an ugly monstruosity

I kinda like it. Course I liked the tiny wing and scissor-wing  shuttle concepts.

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15 minutes ago, tater said:

It's politics, not militarism in that case.

TBM Redstone. IRBM Thor. IRBM Jupiter. A pack of Redstones and Jupiter called Ist stage of Saturn. ICBM Atlas. ICBM Titan.  Pure politics.

Edited by kerbiloid
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9 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

TBM Redstone. IRBM Thor. IRBM Jupiter. A pack of Redstones and Jupiter called Ist stage of Saturn. ICBM Atlas. ICBM Titan.  Pure politics.

All early rocket programs were military, obviously. The contractors were initially military (aircraft) manufacturers. Only recently has that changed at all.

Sticking them (Thiokol boosters) on the side of STS (or SLS) is just what goes to which district.

(I'm universally against putting fireworks (solids) onto crew launch vehicles, BTW).

Edited by tater
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On 5/23/2021 at 3:21 AM, DDE said:

 

One word: Vandenberg. Also, from what I've heard the Shuttle could use its wings for aerodynamic plane change maneuvers.

Anyway, the people behind the study that justified Buran never recanted their opinion that the Shuttle was a bomber.

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3855/1

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3873/1

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3876/1

This contributes to certain... "alternative facts" circulating in the Russian defence community.

A *hydrolox* powered bomber?  While Reagan* spent billions replacing MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) with weapons systems also designed with a "Strike First and win Global Thermonuclear War", I'm pretty sure** there weren't many systems that would be absolutely useless (like a hydrolox bomber) against an opposing attack.

*  the shuttle was mostly designed and budgetted under Nixon/Ford/Carter.  But I don't recall any other "shoot first" programs being pushed through at the time.

** there was a bit of a scandal over the "dense pack" strategy used by the Peacekeeper missile (MX) not being remotely as able to survive an attack as initially claimed, but I suspect they could get most of the missiles launched in the 20 minute window an attack would give them.

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10 hours ago, tater said:

All early rocket programs were military, obviously. The contractors were initially military (aircraft) manufacturers. Only recently has that changed at all.

Mir and Buran were contemporaries of SDI,

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
On 6/4/2021 at 2:44 PM, SpaceFace545 said:
On 6/4/2021 at 2:17 PM, tater said:

I kinda like it. Course I liked the tiny wing and scissor-wing  shuttle concepts.

Same, not sure how or if it could reenter but it reminds me of the StarTram space plane.

https://imgur.com/a/AspxR3B

Maybe it wasn't meant to re-enter, but was intended to use aerodynamic passes to change inclination like the X-37B.

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3 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Maybe it wasn't meant to re-enter, but was intended to use aerodynamic passes to change inclination like the X-37B.

As best I can tell there is no indication that the X-37B has *ever* used aerodynamic passes to change inclination, despite that someone (IIRC, the Sec of the Air Force) once made a reference to it. I mean, amateur sat-watchers can see the X-37B, and nobody has ever reported it making any sudden and strangely unexplainable changes to its orbit.

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It would anyway need as much propellant to reorbit as he had spent on air drag, so it makes sense only on reentry.
Either to land on a custom airfield from random inclination orbit, or to pass through the target lying 2 000 km sideways from its orbit, if it has a warhead to drop.

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  • 3 weeks later...
18 hours ago, tater said:

 

 

I wonder what this all means. Like, did they have some test that required them to be in their initial orbit for a year and a half, and only now they were able to move into an orbit for this Falconsat release? And why does Falconsat need to be in any particular orbit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FalconSAT

"FalconSAT-8 was launched on 17 May 2020 at 13:14 UTC on board an Atlas V rocket. The spacecraft will test a novel electromagnetic propulsion system, low-weight antenna technology and a commercial reaction wheel to provide attitude control in orbit. The schedule for the deployment of the FalconSAT 8 spacecraft from the X-37B spacecraft remains fluid, and may be days, weeks or months."

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“A novel electromagnetic propulsion system” sounds interesting. I know magnetorquers are a thing, I guess it stands to reason you could try to propel yourself using the same idea?

and if so, that might explain why they wanted a particular orbit - could be where that system would best be able to demonstrate its abilities within the X-37B’s range?

Edited by RyanRising
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13 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Like, did they have some test that required them to be in their initial orbit for a year and a half

Interesting question.  Given the new capabilities, is it possible they have been operating the satellite for a while with it attached, gaining data from the first inclination and then decided to release in the second for additional / complimentary work and engine testing? 

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