Space Force preps for the next X-37B missionThe Space Force yesterday released a short press release, outlining its preparations and plans for the next X-37B mission, scheduled to launch on August 21, 2025.
The eighth mission of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, designated USSF-36, with a wide range of test and experimentation objectives. These will include demonstrations of high-bandwidth inter-satellite laser communications technologies and enhanced space navigation using the highest performing quantum inertial sensor in space.
Unfortunately, the military is no longer telling us which of its two X-37B’s is being launched. In fact, it is not clear whether both spacecraft are still operational. According to Wikipedia, this upcoming mission will be flown by the first of these vehicles, OTV-1, on its fourth flight. The other X-37B, OTV-2, has flown four times already, including the last mission of 434 days. I can find no confirmation of Wikipedia’s conclusions however.
Nonetheless, this spacecraft is one of the few projects built by Boeing in recent years that has done exactly what it was intended to do. If only Boeing’s other projects, such as Starliner, would run as smoothly.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Space Force yesterday released a short press release, outlining its preparations and plans for the next X-37B mission, scheduled to launch on August 21, 2025.
The eighth mission of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, designated USSF-36, with a wide range of test and experimentation objectives. These will include demonstrations of high-bandwidth inter-satellite laser communications technologies and enhanced space navigation using the highest performing quantum inertial sensor in space.
Unfortunately, the military is no longer telling us which of its two X-37B’s is being launched. In fact, it is not clear whether both spacecraft are still operational. According to Wikipedia, this upcoming mission will be flown by the first of these vehicles, OTV-1, on its fourth flight. The other X-37B, OTV-2, has flown four times already, including the last mission of 434 days. I can find no confirmation of Wikipedia’s conclusions however.
Nonetheless, this spacecraft is one of the few projects built by Boeing in recent years that has done exactly what it was intended to do. If only Boeing’s other projects, such as Starliner, would run as smoothly.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The quantum inertial sensor is probably the one built by AOSense that Boeing tested on a plane flight last year:
https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/08/09/boeings-quantum-based-navigation-system-takes-flight-in-historic-test/
This one on a single core, I assume
Jeff Wright,
Yep. X-37 is going uphill on an F9 this time, not an FH. All the stuff to be tested on this next excursion can apparently be done in LEO.
Maybe the engineers who designed the X-37 were “a bunch of overpaid old timers” purged by one of Boeing’s “genius” ex-GE CEOs.
Mitch S.,
Wouldn’t surprise me at all if that was so. The more recent staff at Phantom Works doesn’t seem up to what their predecessors could do. They blew off the XS-1 project that DARPA was trying to gin up, for example. I just hope they can keep the X-37s flying.