Top-secret X-37B mini-shuttle mission lifts off from Cape Canaveral (870 hits)
CAPE CANAVERAL – An Atlas V rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station today, hauling a unmanned military mini-shuttle on a top-secret mission.
Cloud coverage in the area threatened to scrub the launch all day, but the weather cleared just enough for an on-time launch at 1:03 p.m. at Launch Complex 41.
The Atlas rocket and its Centaur upper stage performed flawelessly through the first 17 minutes and 34 seconds. The mission then switched into a classified mode, and an information blackout followed.
That’s Standard Operating Procedure for classified military missions launched from Cape Canaveral.
The launch of the X-37B was the first re-flight of one of the experimental spaceplanes. The vehicle aboard the Atlas V was launched in April 2010 on a 224-day technology demonstration mission, the exact nature of which remains classified.
A second X-37B spacecraft launched in March 2011 and flew a 469-day mission.
The X-37B is capable of autonomous atmospheric reentry and landing, and the first two missions concluded on a runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Air Force officials say there is a chance the third mission will culminate with a landing on the shuttle runway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
The service also is considering consolidating X-37B launch, landing and turn-around operations on Florida’s Space Coast.
