Boeing’s X-37B - traces roots to X-20 Dyna Soar

Boeing’s X-37B - Son of X-20 Dyna Soar

Wondering What the U.S. Air Force’s Secretive Spaceplane Can Do? History Offers Clues — War Is Boring — Medium

the X-37B is not the first design of its type. Boeing’s X-20 Dyna Soar proposal, now more than 50 years old, offers some clues as to what today’s X-37B could do.

X-20 Dyna-Soar

X-20 Dyna-Soar Spaceplace Was Decades Ahead of Its Time | Defense Media Network

Dyna-Soar is often compared to the space shuttle, which began flying on April 12, 1981 and completed its 135th and last orbital journey on July 21 of this year. The shuttle was too large and complex to offer cost-effective orbital capabilities for other than the costliest and most complex missions. But Dyna-Soar was also a progenitor and closer relative of the X-37B, the reusable robot spaceplane that was transferred from NASA to the Department of Defense in 2004.
Two X-37Bs have been boosted into low earth orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., by Atlas V 501 rockets, the second on May 5 of this year. The Air Force has said very little about the mission of the X-37B. Officials insist it is a research craft only and it is labeled a “test” vehicle, but space-watchers wonder if it has reconnaissance duties. Except for the absence of a human pilot on board, the X-37B could be a Dyna-Soar on steroids.

X-37B

Air Force's Mysterious X-37B Space Plane Passes 400 Days in Orbit

The U.S. Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane has now circled Earth for more than 400 days on a hush-hush mission that is creeping closer and closer to the vehicle's orbital longevity record.
The X-37B spacecraft launched on Dec. 11, 2012, meaning that it has been aloft for 413 days as of Tuesday (Jan. 28) on the third mission for the program, which is known as OTV-3 (short for Orbital Test Vehicle-3). The endurance record is 469 days, set during OTV-2, which blasted off in 2011.
OTV-2 and OTV-3 have utilized different X-37B vehicle (the Air Force currently has two vehicles). The space plane currently zipping around Earth also flew the program's inaugural OTV-1 mission, which stayed in space for 225 days after launching in 2010. [See photos from the X-37B space plane's OTV-3 mission]

Space architecture is the weak link in US defense policy | TheHill

On Oct. 17, the Air Force's mysterious X-37B reusable unmanned spacecraft landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base after almost two years in orbit. The X-37 is arguably the pinnacle of the United States' space technology, demonstrating the key metric of reusability that will help to ensure lowered costs and increased capabilities for years to come. It will operate on a frontier that will only become more crucial with increased technology and a battlefield that utilizes the space above our atmosphere. It also represents the seriously flawed logic of current U.S. space infrastructure that could spell tragedy rather than victory if any symmetric threats are faced by our military in the near future.

International Reaction

X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle’s mission is Pentagon’s closely guarded secret

Officially, the only role the Pentagon acknowledges is that the space plane is used to conduct experiments on new technologies. Theories about its mission have ranged from an orbiting space bomber to an anti-satellite weapon.
The truth, however, is likely much more obvious: According to intelligence experts and satellite watchers who have closely monitored its orbit, the X-37B is being used to carry secret satellites and classified sensors into space — a little-known role once played by NASA’s new retired space shuttle.
For a decade between the 1980s and early 1990s, NASA’s space shuttle was used for classified military missions, which involved ferrying military payloads into space. But the shuttle’s military role rested on an uneasy alliance between NASA and the Pentagon. Even before the 1986 Challenger disaster, which killed all seven crew members, the Pentagon had grown frustrated with NASA’s delays.

En quatre mots: un drone militaire dans l'espace

When NASA abandoned project X-37 in 1999, after determining that it would be too expensive for use as a taxi to the International Space Station, the Air Force jumped at the chance to take it over. "NASA had only a reduced model, the X-37A, to go into space. The Air Force built the X-37B space and working on a version of the X-37C, which in my opinion will never see the day because it would be too expensive. The Air Force dream of a space fighter since the 50s, "says Jonathan McDowell. He first proposed the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, a military space shuttle program was canceled in 1963. Then the manned orbiting laboratory, which was for espionage and was canceled in 1969 when realized that spy satellites would be cheaper. The Air Force Space Command was created in 1982 along with the space engineering battalion whose members had a few missions on the space shuttle before the battalion was dissolved in 1990.

Secret space unmanned vehicle X-37B housed at Kennedy Space Center

Experts from Russia agree with the opinion that the unmanned spaceship is a combat drone. Head of the Space Policy Institute Ivan Moiseev, believes that it is a purely military unit, and its mission the Americans kept secret. There is unusual secrecy about the project, confirmed Alexander Zheleznyakov, Academician of the Tsiolkovsky State Museum of Cosmonautics in an interview with "Russian world". It is unlikely that the device will be used to attack targets on the surface of the Earth, but it could well lead to a successful project space interceptors, which will be able to stop and inspect objects on the Earth's orbit, and if necessary, destroy them. This mission caused Alexander Shirokorad of "Independent Military Review", to call the unit "a reusable aerospace pirate." However, Ivan Moiseyev states the X-37B - is still not ship Interceptor, but a "mother ship for small satellites." He believes that in the case of a local conflict, the unmanned spaceship will be able to bring to orbit a number of small satellites that will provide the necessary military data, information and communication. At the moment, this device has been up to orbit three times - in 2010, 2011 and 2012. And each flight spacecraft was longer than the last. And the X-37B, which was launched in 2012, is still in Earth orbit. Details of each of these missions were not disclosed. However, during the second flight in the press slipped information that the device is working on gathering intelligence information. , сообщает http://www.riasv.ru