SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket engine is scheduled to launch overnight from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, on Florida's Atlantic coast, with a 10-minute launch window starting at 8:07 p.m. local time (8:07 a.m. Friday GMT+7).
Three launches have been delayed in the past month due to poor weather conditions and unspecified technical issues, forcing ground teams to repeatedly return the aircraft to the garage before this launch.
The launch comes two weeks after China's reusable robotic spacecraft, Shenlong, launched for the third time since 2020, adding to the space race between the US and China.
The most recent weather forecast predicts an 80% chance of favorable weather conditions for the launch.
The US Department of Defense has released very little information about the X-37B mission, a mission conducted by the US Space Force under the US military's National Security Space Launch program.
The Boeing spacecraft, which is about the size of a small bus and looks like a mini-space shuttle, is designed to deploy various technologies and conduct experiments on long-duration orbital flights. At the end of its mission, it will descend and land on a runway similar to an airplane.
The spaceplane has flown six flights since 2010, with the first five missions being powered by Atlas V rocket engines from United Launch Alliance (an alliance between Boeing and Lockheed Martin) and the most recent mission being launched in May 2020 using SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket engines.
The upcoming mission will mark the maiden launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket engine, a rocket that can carry a payload larger than the X-37B and can fly into geosynchronous orbit, an orbit 35,000 km above the Earth's surface.
The X-37B, or Experimental Orbital Flight Vehicle, is typically used in low-orbit missions, at altitudes of 2,000 km.
“New orbital mode and seeds”
The Pentagon has not released information about the mission’s orbital altitude. However, in a statement last month, the Air Force Rapid Response Office said that Mission 7 would include tests of “new orbital modes, testing future space-aware technologies.”
The X-37B will also carry out a NASA experiment that will study how seeds are affected by the harsh radiation conditions of space. The ability to grow crops in space could have a significant impact on the ability to provide nutrition for astronauts on long-term missions to the Moon and Mars.
China's Shenlong mission was launched on December 14 using a Long March 2F rocket engine, a less powerful launch system than SpaceX's Falcon Heavy and limited to low-orbit ranges.
However, General B. Chance Saltzman of the US Space Force said at a conference last month that he believes China will launch the Shenlong spacecraft around the same time the US launches the X-37B to demonstrate competition with the US.
“China is very interested in our spacecraft. And we are very interested in theirs.”
“These are two objects worth watching once they are in orbit. The fact that they are timing their launches with ours is probably no coincidence.”
The duration of the X-37B's current mission has not been publicly announced, but it is likely that the mission will last until June 2026 or beyond, based on the increasingly long missions.
The X-37B's most recent mission lasted more than two years before landing in November 2022.
Nguyen Quang Minh (according to Reuters)
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