Mysterious US spaceplane returns to Earth

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29669205

A US plane on a top-secret, two-year mission to space has returned to Earth and landed in California.
The aircraft, resembling a miniature space shuttle and known as the Orbital Test Vehicle or X-37B, spent 674 days in orbit around the planet.
It touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base on Friday morning.
The purpose of the plane remains unclear - a theory that it was taking a look at China's space lab has recently been downplayed by experts.
Air Force officials have only told US media the aircraft performs "risk reduction, experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies".

OK AH, secret US aircraft lands after two years in space, what was it doing (or what were the passengers doing)??

Big Brother in space! :pac:

dubscottie

Goggle X37B.. Public knowledge..

Next gen shuttle!

Knasher

Deleted User wrote: »

(or what were the passengers doing)??

It's a autonomous aircraft, it doesn't carry passengers.

dubscottie

dubscottie wrote: »

Goggle X37B.. Public knowledge..

Next gen shuttle!

This is AH why spoil the fun and tinfoil!

endacl

Deleted User wrote: »

OK AH, secret US aircraft lands after two years in space, what was it doing (or what were the passengers doing)??

Scattering the Ebola virus, and intercepting dodgy snapchat pics.

endacl

dubscottie wrote: »

Goggle X37B.. Public knowledge..

Next gen shuttle!

Goggle really made a breakthrough with the X37B. Very nippy about town.

endacl

Mother of Jaysus!!!

It's crewed by giant spacemen!!!!

:eek:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/X-37B_orbital_test_vehicle_landing-2.jpg

Bipolar Joe

My guess is risk reduction, experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies.

Birneybau

Intelligent apes.

We're doomed, DOOMED!

Duggy747

If there's a naked Sam Neil inside it then it's probably Event Horizon.

Birneybau

Duggy747 wrote: »

If there's a naked Sam Neil inside it then it's probably Event Horizon.

He was diabolical in that film.

mikeyjames9

[Deleted User] wrote: »

OK AH, secret US aircraft lands after two years in space, what was it doing (or what were the passengers doing)??

Lookin for extraterrestrial pussy

jill_valentine

Duggy747 wrote: »

If there's a naked Sam Neil inside it then it's probably Event Horizon.

Luckily we'll all pull our eyes out or something soon after.

Thoie

Bipolar Joe wrote: »

My guess is risk reduction, experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies.

I think that's just a cover up for reusable space vehicle technology proofs of concept, a few "experiments" and a bit of risk analysis (with a view to reduction). You're one of them, aren't you?

RikkFlair

Birneybau wrote: »

Intelligent apes.

We're doomed, DOOMED!

It's a MADHOUSE!!

Turtwig

Quite clearly it was measuring the mutation rate of neutrinos to determine how long we have before the core heats up to human extinction threatening levels and the mantle swallows us all!

jill_valentine

Maybe they were up there keeping an eye on the Russian sex lizards.

endacl

mikeyjames9 wrote: »

Lookin for extraterrestrial pussy

Sir Arthur Daley

they stole the attractive female tv presenters, mystery solved.

AndonHandon

If chimpanzes and gorillas outnumbered people, would they enslave us?

Gatling

I'd love to know what payload it was carrying for the 2 years

hardCopy

endacl wrote: »

Scattering the Ebola virus, and intercepting dodgy snapchat pics.

Ultra-high-altitude chemtrails

namloc1980

AndonHandon wrote: »

If chimpanzes and gorillas outnumbered people, would they enslave us?

Of course. I saw a documentary about it once called Planet of the Apes.

AndonHandon

namloc1980 wrote: »

Of course. I saw a documentary about it once called Planet of the Apes.

And yet people want to protect them!

weisses

Isn't it obvious it dropped of these 2 on mars ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ctRsGbZpzU

OneArt

I sure hope there weren't passengers on it for two years.

Where would all the poo go?

Gatling

OneArt wrote: »

I sure hope there weren't passengers on it for two years.

Where would all the poo go?

Shooting stars comes to mind

Gatling

Gatling wrote: »

Shooting stars comes to mind

Considering the quantities involved, they'd be pretty shíte tbh...

c_man

I heard it came back changed... Smart, self aware...


At least that's what I've been told.

Overheal

My guess is its ultimately a neat concept for a repurposable satellite. You can't exactly land Hubble and perform upgrades to it, you need to launch a rather expensive manned mission to do such things in orbit, currently. An unmanned X-37B production type could allow for remote upgrades of other satellites or itself act as a satellite with a given payload and then return to earth for re-fitting at a much lower cost.

I think the one that caused the most stir was actually the HTV-2 Falcon, I can't find the news reports but this fella caused a stir the other year when it went screaming across the skies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project