OTV-5 (X-37B) - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A - 07.09.2017, 14:00 UTC

[Salo]

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06/spacex-launches-us-air-force-x-37b-space-plane.html

SpaceX wins launch of US Air Force X-37B space plane

[/li]
• Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp will fly its first mission for the U.S. Air Force in August when it launches the military's X-37B miniature spaceplane.
  

Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies will fly its first mission for the U.S. Air Force in August when it launches the military's X-37B miniature spaceplane, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said on Tuesday.

Four previous X-37B missions were launched by United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets.

"SpaceX will be sending the next Air Force payload up into space in August," Wilson said during webcast testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. She later specified that the payload would be one of the Air Force's two X-37B spaceplanes.

[Безумный Шляпник]

На Фалконе?! Офигеть.

[Salo]

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/06/u-s-air-force-taps-spacex-to-launch-next-x-37b-spaceplane-mission/

U.S. Air Force taps SpaceX to launch next X-37B spaceplane mission             
 June 6, 2017 Stephen Clark
 
File photo of an X-37B spaceplane being encapsulated inside the nose cone of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket before its first test flight in April 2010. Credit. U.S. Air Force

A month after an X-37B mini-space shuttle glided to a landing on Kennedy Space Center's runway in Florida, the U.S. Air Force announced Tuesday that the spaceplane's next mission will launch in August aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the first time.
The previously-unannounced launch agreement will use a Falcon 9 rocket to loft one of the Air Force's two Boeing-built X-37B spaceplanes, reusable craft that have circled Earth for a combined 2,085 days on four previous flights.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, displaying a model of the unpiloted spaceplane, disclosed the service's launch plans for the fifth X-37B mission during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday.
"This is the model of the X-37, which will be going up again," Wilson said. "It's a reusable vehicle and will be going up again on top of a SpaceX launcher in August."
Managed by the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office, the X-37Bs are about one-quarter the size of a space shuttle orbiter. Built by Boeing's Phantom Works division, each spaceship has a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.5 meters) and a length of more than 29 feet (8.9 meters).
The X-37B weighs about 11,000 pounds (5 metric tons) and has typically orbited Earth at altitudes between 200 and 250 miles (320 to 400 kilometers).
The X-37Bs, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, take off nestled inside the payload fairing of a conventional rocket, then open payload bay doors and deploy a power-generating solar panel in orbit. The spaceplanes glide back to Earth for a runway landing.
 
An X-37B spaceplane is towed to a hangar near the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida following a landing May 7. Credit: U.S. Air Force

Спойлер

The craft's four previous missions lifted off on United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets from Cape Canaveral, each mission spending progressively longer periods in orbit.
The X-37Bs took off inside the short version of the Atlas 5 rocket's 5-meter-class payload fairing without the aid of strap-on solid rocket boosters, a configuration ULA calls the Atlas 5-501. The Falcon 9's standard payload shroud is approximately the same diameter and length of the Atlas 5's short 5-meter fairing.
The most recent flight, named OTV-4, ended May 7 with the X-37B's first touchdown on the former space shuttle landing strip at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida after 718 days in orbit. The previous three missions landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but the Air Force and Boeing have relocated X-37B launch, landing and processing operations to the Florida spaceport, taking over two former space shuttle hangars near the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building.
The X-37B's missions in space are largely secret, and the robotic spaceship's landing last month was the first time the Air Force did not announce the craft's scheduled return ahead of time. Breaking with disclosures ahead of earlier flights, the Air Force also did not reveal which of the two spaceplanes flew the OTV-4 mission.
Military officials did not identify Tuesday which spacecraft is slated for the fifth X-37B flight.
"We are very excited for the next fifth X-37B mission," said Randy Walden, the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. "We look forward to continued expansion of the vehicle's performance and are excited to continue hosting experimental payloads for the space community."
 
File photo of a Falcon 9 launch from pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: SpaceX

The Air Force said in a statement Tuesday that the fifth X-37B flight will include several firsts.
"This mission will be the program's first launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Upgrade launch vehicle," the Air Force said. "The program also continues to build upon its fourth mission collaboration with experiment partners."
The Air Force Research Laboratory will test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes on the X-37B's fifth long-duration spaceflight, military officials said.
Other objectives of the flight remain secret.
"The ability to launch the Orbital Test Vehicle on multiple platforms will ensure a robust launch capability for our experiment designers," Walden said in a statement. "We are excited about this new partnership on creating flexible and responsive launch options and are confident in SpaceX's ability to provide safe and assured access to space for the X-37B program."
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was certified by the Air Force to launch the military's sensitive and costly national security payloads in 2015. Since that milestone, the Air Force has awarded contracts to SpaceX for launches of two Global Positioning System navigation satellites, and at least a dozen more launch contracts are up for grabs by SpaceX and ULA through 2019.
 
File photo of the launch of the fourth X-37B mission in May 2015 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. Credit: ULA

Before SpaceX was certified, the Air Force gave launch contracts ULA in sole-source "block buy" awards.
But the rocket contract for the fifth X-37B mission was not listed in a roster of planned competitive space launch procurements provided by Air Force officials in recent months.
SpaceX has up to a half-dozen launches on its schedule before the X-37B mission in August, primarily deployments of commercial communications satellites. The company aims to resume flights from Cape Canaveral's Complex 40 launch pad by September after crews repair damage to the facility from a Falcon 9 rocket explosion in September.
Until then, all Falcon 9s launched from Florida will take off from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the starting point for the Apollo moon missions and most space shuttle flights.
Officials have not specified which Florida launch pad will host the Falcon 9's liftoff with the fifth X-37B flight, and SpaceX said last week that they have not determined which mission will be the next to depart from pad 40.
Wilson, who has been the top civilian in the Air Force for three weeks, told lawmakers Tuesday the hotly-competitive U.S. launch market is driving launch prices down, giving the military two certified contractors to ensure a backup provider is available if one launch vehicle runs into trouble.
The Pentagon instituted the "assured access to space" policy after a string of launch failures in the 1990s, and ULA's Atlas and Delta rocket fleets offered the military launch redundancy until SpaceX's Falcon 9 arrived on the market.
"We had a huge problem in the 1990s with access to space, and the country, at that time, made a significant investment in space capability, and the ability to launch, and it paid off and is showing results," Wilson said. "The benefit now is that we're seeing competition, and it's bringing the price down for access to space."

[свернуть]

[triage]

Т.к спрятали под кат заявления о нагрузке

 http://spacenews.com/spacex-will-launch-next-secret-x-37-air-force-mission/
Randy Walden, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, said in a press release that "the ability to launch the Orbital Test Vehicle on multiple platforms will ensure a robust launch capability for our experiment designers. We are excited about this new partnership on creating flexible and responsive launch options and are confident in SpaceX's ability to provide safe and assured access to space for the X-37B program."
...
The Air Force said it intends to continue building "upon its fourth mission collaboration with experiment partners. The mission will carry the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader (ASETS-11) to test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes in the long duration space environment."
...

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/06/u-s-air-force-taps-spacex-to-launch-next-x-37b-spaceplane-mission/
...
Military officials did not identify Tuesday which spacecraft is slated for the fifth X-37B flight.
"We are very excited for the next fifth X-37B mission," said Randy Walden, the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. "We look forward to continued expansion of the vehicle's performance and are excited to continue hosting experimental payloads for the space community."
The Air Force said in a statement Tuesday that the fifth X-37B flight will include several firsts.
"This mission will be the program's first launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Upgrade launch vehicle," the Air Force said. "The program also continues to build upon its fourth mission collaboration with experiment partners."
The Air Force Research Laboratory will test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes on the X-37B's fifth long-duration spaceflight, military officials said.

Other objectives of the flight remain secret.

"The ability to launch the Orbital Test Vehicle on multiple platforms will ensure a robust launch capability for our experiment designers," Walden said in a statement. "We are excited about this new partnership on creating flexible and responsive launch options and are confident in SpaceX's ability to provide safe and assured access to space for the X-37B program."
...

[triage]

В шапке темы AFSPC-7: OTV-5 (X-37B 01 flight 3) - что это третий никто подтвердить не может, написано в статье  https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/06/u-s-air-force-taps-spacex-to-launch-next-x-37b-spaceplane-mission/

[Чебурашка]

Бгг... получится почти всё многоразовое... Осталось только научится вторую ступень спасать 

[triage]

На Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader  oscillating heat pipes  нашлось от 2015 года

 http://articles.sae.org/13819/
AFRL, ThermAvant collaborate on technologies to help electronics stay cool
08-Jan-2015 12:26 EST
A next-generation, micro-chip carrier for cooling is currently in development by Columbia, MO-based ThermAvant Technologies, LLC, and is already being tested by manufacturers of several major commercial and military satellite and aerospace systems, according to the company. This cooling solution will reduce the temperature of high-power satellite components to levels manageable by the spacecraft's thermal control system, which is beneficial because it improves processor reliability, while providing the opportunity to increase on-board processing,
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and ThermAvant began researching the application of this technology as a result of an Air Force Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) solicitation. The project called for reliable, high-conductivity heat spreaders; ThermAvant demonstrated the improved heat transfer properties of different structural materials (including aluminum, titanium, copper, and a copper molybdenum composite) embedded with oscillating heat pipe (OHP) technology. OHP-embedded chip carriers and heat spreaders will be used to transport heat dissipated by micro-chips to the spacecraft's larger thermal control systems.

Спойлер

This is a critical technology for space-based systems that will enable the deployment of higher temperature and power processors aboard satellite payloads. It can be used in both commercial and military satellite applications, as well as any high-performance land-based electronics. ThermAvant previously investigated the thermal performance tradeoffs of different fabrication processes for making OHP heat spreaders under a range of simulated real-world operating conditions. The company was co-founded by Dr. Bill Ma, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Missouri.
During the testing, ThermAvant's prototype OHP-embedded heat spreaders provided an 84% reduction in the temperature rise across the heat spreader, when compared to current state-of-the-art technologies. This reduction in temperature provides many benefits, but the most important is the ability to increase the onboard computing power.
Current satellite processors are running at 10% of their operating capability as a result of insufficient thermal management. Reducing the junction temperature allows for increased processing capability (up to 10 times more) and increases the expected lifetime of the onboard chips. Additionally, the advanced manufacturing techniques developed under this effort will allow this higher-performing technology solution to be manufactured at a lower price point than competing technologies.
The company's improved methods for making OHP-based products has already demonstrated commercial promise to both space- and ground-based thermal management applications for electronics. During the first year of this Phase II SBIR, ThermAvant transitioned OHP-based thermal management solutions to four major defense contractors for six applications on platforms ranging from Army tanks to Navy ships and Air Force aircraft and spacecraft. In these applications the OHP-based thermal management solution performed 5% to 50% better than the status quo, and is on average approximately 20% less expensive.
The Air Force SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs are mission-oriented programs that integrate the needs and requirements of the Air Force through research and development topics that have military and commercial potential. The SBIR and STTR programs provide more than $300 million in funding for R&D activities by small businesses annually, from the early stages of concept development until it transitions to military or commercial use.

[свернуть]

https://www.thermavant.com/news/example-styles
May 16, 2016
THERMAVANT TECHNOLOGIES SELECTED FOR AIR FORCE PHASE I SBIR

Passive-Solid State Power Amplifier Thermal Management

ThermAvant's proposal for Passive Solid-State Power Amplifier Thermal Management submitted under SBIR Topic Number AF161-086 has been selected for award by the Department of Defense and the Air Force Research Laboratory. The pending award aims to develop low-cost, low-mass thermal management solutions to address the high heat flux and temperature of next generation GaN power amplifiers or phased arrays. The proposed heat transfer technology will have use aboard DoD satellites and be equally applicable for use on commercial satellites, as well as many other terrestrial electronics.

[Apollo13]

Чебурашка пишет:
Бгг... получится почти всё многоразовое... Осталось только научится вторую ступень спасать  

Надо ее с Х-37 объединить. В принципе если XS-1 поставить на 1-ю ступень Фалкона получится примерно оно. Только SSME заменить на J-2X и ТЗП усилить.

[tnt22]

Bulgariasat launch realigns; SpaceX secures X-37B launch contract

[Salo]

pnetmon пишет:
В шапке темы AFSPC-7: OTV-5 (X-37B 01 flight 3) - что это третий никто подтвердить не может, написано в статье https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/06/u-s-air-force-taps-spacex-to-launch-next-x-37b-spaceplane-mission/

Кроме того это не AFSPC-7.

[triage]

По шапке - а как версия что это полет того же что приземлился в мае, то есть четвертый полет?

Кажется только Гюнтер утверждает и с него утверждают что OTV-4 это второй полет OTV-2. (L2 конечно не всем доступен)
Тут конечно утверждают что у них чередование

 http://spacenews.com/spacex-will-launch-next-secret-x-37-air-force-mission/
...
There are actually two Boeing-built X-37 spacecraft. The Air Force has not indicated which X-37 craft will be launching aboard the SpaceX rocket. However, the fact that the service has been alternating missions between the two craft, and that the second X-37 was the one that landed in May, means that it's likely the first X-37 is due up for the next mission.
...

Но малая вероятность есть.

Тут пишут https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42889.msg1687850#msg1687850 - это первый запуск X-37b не на российских двигателях (хотя выбор и небольшой)

[АниКей]

tass.ru  SpaceX совершит запуск орбитального самолета для ВВС США в августе


НЬЮ-ЙОРК, 8 июня. /Корр. ТАСС Кирилл Волков/. Компания SpaceX выиграла у ВВС США контракт на запуск американского орбитального многоразового беспилотного самолета-разведчика X-37B с помощью своей ракеты носителя Falcon 9.
Как сообщают местные профильные СМИ, полет аппарата состоится, как ожидается, в августе 2017 года, однако точная дата запуска пока неизвестна. Это будет уже пятый полет секретного самолета X-37B производства компании Boeing. Четвертый завершился в начале мая, когда аппарат после около двух лет пребывания в космосе совершил успешную посадку на космодроме на мысе Канаверал в американском штате Флорида.
До этого все запуски X-37B осуществляла компания United Launch Alliance с помощью своей ракеты-носителя Atlas V. Почему минобороны решило отдать контракт на очередной запуск SpaceX, неизвестно.
О цели предстоящего полета также известно немного ввиду секретности проекта. В ВВС США лишь заявили, что аппарат будет нести некий "экспериментальный груз" и оборудование, необходимое для проведения космических тестов.
Проект X-37 компания Boeing начинала под эгидой NASA еще в 1999 году. Первоначально предполагалось, что аппараты многоразового использования X-37 будут предназначаться для ремонта спутников на орбите. Однако в 2004 году программу засекретили и передали в ведение ВВС США.
Первый тестовый полет изначальной версии аппарата под названием X-37A был совершен в апреле 2006 года, после которого последовали еще два успешных испытания. Впоследствии в ВВС США заявили, что они будут продолжать совершенствовать аппарат. Новая модель получила название X-37B, ее орбитальные полеты начали проводиться с 2010 года.
По мнению экспертов, такие самолеты могут использоваться как для испытания новых технологий, так и для доставки в космос разведывательных спутников. Потенциально на них могут быть установлены вооружения, но Пентагон заверяет, что это в его планы не входит.

[Salo]

https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

NET Aug. 15 • Falcon 9 • OTV-5
Launch window: TBD
 Launch site: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the U.S. military's X-37B, a spaceplane also called the Orbital Test Vehicle, on the program's fifth mission. [June 9]

[triage]

Bruno из ULA говорит что про августовский запуск услышал постфактум, военные молчат.

http://spacenews.com/tory-bruno-says-ula-didnt-get-to-compete-for-air-force-x-37b-launch-that-went-to-spacex/
Tory Bruno says ULA didn't get to compete for Air Force X-37B launch that went to SpaceX
by Phillip Swarts — June 9, 2017

WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance did not get the opportunity to compete for the next launch of the Air Force's X-37B space plane, according to company officials.
Tory Bruno, ULA's president and chief executive, tweeted June 9 in response to a question that his company didn't have the chance to bid on the launch contract.

The Air Force announced June 6 that SpaceX won the contract for the fifth launch of the service's secretive experimental spacecraft, and Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said in congressional testimony the same day that the launch is scheduled for August.
ULA has launched the previous four X-37B missions aboard Atlas 5 rockets.
A spokesperson for the Air Force declined to comment on the contract or the launch, saying that they could not provide details.
ULA confirmed Bruno's tweet in a statement to SpaceNews.
"ULA did not have the opportunity to bid for the Air Force's fifth X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) mission which was recently awarded," the emailed statement said. "ULA remains fully committed to continuing to support America's national security missions with world-class launch services."

[tnt22]

Marcia Smith‏ @SpcPlcyOnline 15 ч назад

SecAf Wilson just said SpaceX would "go up again on August 17" so presumably that's the exact date for the X-37B launch.

[Apollo13]

Первая ступень замечена на пути в Макгрегор. Вероятно 1040 для OTV-5.

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/6pgz54/spacex_booster_off_to_the_side_of_the_road_in/

[silentpom]

сажать же будут?

[Apollo13]

silentpom пишет:
сажать же будут?

Да на землю.

[Искандер]

Apollo13 пишет:

silentpom пишет:
сажать же будут?

Да на землю.

Сплошной гешефт.

[silentpom]

практически чистый шаттл блин. осталось только вторую ступень спасти