Top-secret X-37B space plane ready for daring new orbital maneuver

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/12/x37b_space_plane/

5 Comments

  1. Not a secret, not a “plane”, and I’m unclear how an unmanned brick can do anything that would qualify as “daring”, especially considering aerobraking has been a standard procedure for atmospheric re-entry of just about all the space craft that we’ve shot into orbit. Pack it up with all the other obsolete space junk. This is just a feeble attempt at drumming up interest in an already played-out technology. The accompanying Ai generated graphic is also a bad look.

  2. (Puts on tinfoil hat)

    What’s cool/unsettling is that it’s essentially towing a trailer behind it full of top secret experiments. When they de-orbit the thing, they let the payload of whatever is back there burn up in the atmosphere. They claim it’s because they don’t want to leave behind anymore space junk, but when has the government or military really given a crap about that? They just don’t want some other national going up there to collect it.