Yesterday SpaceX successfully launched the military’s X-37B space-plane into orbit for another mission to do… well, we really don’t know. It’s somewhat a mystery what it does – we know it “hosts experiments” and is built for long duration flight (literally over a year in orbit on its last mission) as well as high maneuverability, and re-usability. (Oh, look, another spacecraft that is re-usable and isn’t made by SpaceX). It’s a pretty awesome little machine, but it’s military ownership naturally makes anyone wonder just what else it might be doing up there.
On to the launch, of course being a military payload, information on the payload flight path was minimal. The focus of the webcast was the 1st stage, really, the launch and landing. Incidentally in the webcast, the host makes simultaneous comments about the landing being something major and critical for their “ultimate mission of getting to Mars” yet also saying the landing is a “secondary objective” as it is with all their missions. This is something maybe the fanbase should keep in mind…
Anyway, What happens? X-37B made it to orbit, and the 1st stage landed successfully, marking the 16th stage recovery. A good mission! I still just wish the webcasts were better…. hearing the fans at the headquarters scream at staging but ignore equally critical events is beyond annoying.
Still the webcast provides a damned awesome view of the landing process. Always nice. Actually it’s rather amazing to see from on the stage.