In a short conversation with ShockWave Lover he brought up the old anti-sat system that was launched by the F-15 way back during the Star Wars days. The program was canned but I suspect that it simply went classified and continues to this day.
But when you add what was done back then with the new Darpa project, which I believe is simply an attempt to utilize the work that was done in a classified setting and bring into the light, its obvious to me that we have our bases covered when it comes to space warfare.
We can quickly launch replacement sats that are knocked down by threat nations and we have the ability to take their sats out.
Which leads me to the X-37.
If I'm right then that just adds to the confusion surrounding that space plane. Exactly what is it for? What is its mission? It has endurance, its reusable and its maneuverable in space.
Is it part of the US space warfare plans or is it actually just a test vehicle?
This is the one project that we don't talk about that should be front and center..especially to you aviation/space buffs.
Most likely it's a technology test-bed. Cheaper than launching a new satellite every few years with untested tech in it. If it's cargo bay has new sensors in it every time it goes up based on previous missions, it could conceivably greatly speed development of orbital spying technology by compressing the timeline of development->testing.
ReplyDeleteThe X-37 can also change it's orbit pretty dramatically apparently, which is useful when considering that China has been developing anti-Satellite weapons. Something X-37 like (likely a successor) could be ideal to launch in an emergency, if China has attacked our satellite network and we need emergency coverage over the Pacific.
Its not a space drone, I wager.It's too small and too light for this purpose. Any munitions (even if they carried no explosives... a penetrator in that case, that destroys from kinetic energy) it carries would by nature of the size of it's cargo bay and its cargo capacity, be small... the size of a roll of wrapping paper or something.
It wouldn't be an economic weapon. Let's say it carries a dozen of these. That makes it a $300 million Atlas V launch + mission costs, to get 12 shots at 12 satellites.
By contrast, any ship that carries the SM-3 missile and is fitted as part of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system - that is about 25 US Destroyers (out of 62) and 5 cruisers (out of 20) I believe at this point - can fire SM-3 at a satellite with a software patch applied to it. Each SM-3 costs $9 million. A dozen of them costs $108 million.
This is important because fundamentally space is about economics more than anything else. The biggest driver in space launch is the costs of putting things into orbit. So if X-37 carried ASAT weapons, it would be three times as expensive at least, to do the same job as what 30 US Navy ships are capable of doing.
Now scaled up that could change. If there was a larger vehicle that carried dozens of penetrators and launched for lets say $410 million on top of a Delta IV Heavy, you could make a case it is cheaper than firing SM-3s, and thus economically worthwhile. But that's not what we have in this case. And considering there have been no tests of the weapon, no reports of damaged satellites, or ones that mysteriously vanished from catalogs, it's unlikely there is any weapon system being carried.
After all, why would the Air Force be launching an experimental weapon system on an experimental vehicle, if not to test it? And if they did test it, why keep it in orbit for 600 days when they can get all the data they want from a few tests, as they do with every other weapon?
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ReplyDeleteI always wonder if it isn't part of a system of satellites. Docking isn't really all that special anymore, why not use X37 to refuel spy-sats in orbit? It would be a lot cheaper to use it as a tanker back and forth between Earth and the spy-sats than launching new spy-sats.......I also believe it's a technology test bed.
ReplyDeleteIf they spy-sat is design to be refueled.
DeleteWhen you take all the crap out of the old Space Shuttle that is there to support crew survival, you have the X-37 capability in some forms. Able to deliver certain payloads...and of course also to use as a sensor platform that you can refurb / refresh when it comes back. Unlike some of our expensive spy satellites that have limited life and less operational versatility.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I am wondering if this isn't some kind of space tug/refueller for specially built spy-sats. Those bad boys are super expensive so why not develop the X37 to refuel them and help them with orbit maintenance and such? I think it's too small to be really a weapon or carry weapons and as a test bed, you can put new tech inside small sats or micro sats, works just about the same, might even be cheaper.....
DeleteThe kinetic killer don't need to be big, they can be even size of small box with fuel to correct own curse and basic guidance system, you don't need to much power to crack a sat, just some kinetic energy. It can take couple of them in single time and eliminate whole sat network over a region pretty fast.
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