After nearly a year in orbit, the US Space Force’s secretive X-37B is prepped to perform some fancy new maneuvers to alter its orbit and dump its service module before carrying on with more mysterious work.
Aerobraking has been used in previous space missions, including the ESA’s ExoMars orbiter, the Venus Express, and others.
It’s not immediately clear if the service module on OTV-7 is of the same design, or if it’s bigger.
According to the Space Force, part of the orbital adjustment will include the X-37B “safely dispos[ing] of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation.”
OTV-7 won’t be returning to Earth immediately, though: The 29-foot-long space plane still has some more experiments to conduct before heading home.
The US Space Force’s enigmatic X-37B is ready to execute some fancy new maneuvers to change its orbit and remove its service module before continuing with more unidentified work after spending almost a year in orbit.
Usually silent on the X-37B’s orbital operations, the Space Force announced yesterday that aerobraking will be used for the first time on the seventh orbital test vehicle mission (OTV-7) to reduce orbit and slow a path around Earth.
Previous space missions, such as the Venus Express and the ESA’s ExoMars orbiter, have used aerobraking. The method uses a tight periapsis and atmospheric drag to gradually reduce the maximum orbital distance of an elliptical orbit around a planet. It uses a lot less fuel because it depends on the atmosphere to slow the craft, which makes it perfect for longer missions.
“The United States Space Force is striving to increase our aptitude and performance in this difficult domain, and this first-of-its-kind maneuver from the X-37B is a tremendously significant milestone,” said General Chance Saltzman, USSF chief of space operations.
Some trash needs to be disposed of.
The X-37B is a long-term fixed-wing aircraft, but the US Space Force has released very little information about its operations in orbit.
After landing at the end of OTV-6 in late 2022, it completed six missions, the longest of which was less than a year in 2010. Since then, it has been able to complete nine hundred and eighty-eight days of flight time. Additionally, it was the first mission to launch the X-37B into orbit with a service module attached to the back of the craft in the shape of a ring. That nearly two and a half-year mission was another first.
Whether the service module on OTV-7 is larger or has the same design is not immediately apparent. As we mentioned when discussing OTV-7’s decision to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, the vehicle provided the Space Force with significantly increased cargo capacity, allowing the service module to be bigger.
In any case, it appears that the goal is to have it removed from the craft during the aerobraking maneuver. The Space Force states that the X-37B will “safely dispos[e] of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation” as part of the orbital adjustment. “. .
The previous flight used a different procedure in which the service module was separated before the X-37B returned to Earth, leaving it in orbit to “be disposed of in accordance with best practices,” as stated by the Space Force.
However, OTV-7 won’t be coming back to Earth right away. Before it can return home, the 29-foot-long spacecraft needs to complete a few more experiments. All that is known about the spacecraft is that it is carrying out experiments related to space domain awareness technology and is testing materials to see how they respond to radiation.
We have contacted the Space Force to inquire about the remaining tasks for OTV-7 and the duration of its planned stay in space, but we have not received a response. One covert spacecraft, that is. ®.
