By Victor Kotsev

As the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, the United States Air Force’s new robotic mini-shuttle, made its maiden flight into space last Thursday, many of the details surrounding the spacecraft remained veiled in secrecy.

It is known that the X-37B project is based on a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) model which was earlier scrapped, probably reducing costs, and that the project is entirely funded by the Department of Defense’s black box.

However, its total budget is unclear, as is its exact mission – “classified experiments” – the location of its mission control and the duration of its journey, which could be anything up to nine months. “In all honesty, we don’t know when it’s coming back for sure,” said Gary Payton, deputy under-secretary for the air force’s space programs.

Given all the mystery, it is no surprise that the launch generated a lot of hype. Some observers, including apparently the Iranian government, interpreted it as a threat against Iran. The Islamic Republic specifically expressed worry about the “militarization of space”, and Press TV, a government-owned Iranian media outlet, called the project a “secret space warplane”.

United States government officials promptly denied the claims. “The X-37B is a risk reduction vehicle for space experimentation and to explore concepts of operation for a long duration, reusable space vehicle,” said a spokesperson for the project.

The robotic shuttle, if it passes its tests successfully, would add important new capabilities for the US Air Force. At the very least, it would help service expensive US military satellites; it is not hard, however, to imagine much more active military roles. “Regardless of its original intent, the most obvious and formidable is in service as a space fighter – a remotely piloted craft capable of disabling multiple satellites in orbit on a single mission and staying on orbit for months to engage newly orbited platforms,” said Everett Dolman, professor at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at the Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base.

Some go even further in their speculation. “Ultimately, weapons could be delivered from a space plane in low Earth orbit,” commented William Scott, a former bureau chief for the Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine.

Perched on top of a giant Atlas V rocket ready to take it into space, the X-37B looks diminutive and unimpressive. Its length is just 8.8 meters and its height is less than three meters. The wingspan is 4.25 meters, bringing the total weight to about five tons. However, this small size, in addition to the ability to adjust orbit, makes it an ideal reconnaissance and anti-satellite platform.
It is especially well-adapted to enter and leave polar-type orbit, favored by most espionage satellites, without being detected. “A shuttle [is] able to lift off from Vandenberg [US Air Force base in California],” writes Lewis Page for The Register, “orbit at a high angle from the Equator once – during which time it could deploy something or pick something up – and then re-enter, using its wings to bend its re-entry track east and so put down again in California, never having overflown any nation of concern”.

This information might help explain Iran’s worries about the project. The Islamic Republic’s space program is already fairly advanced, and the country has two satellites in orbit: Sinah-1, launched by Russia in 2005, and Omid, launched by a domestically-built rocket last year. Several other satellites and space missions are in the works.

Since the X-37B is still in the early stages of being tested, it is unlikely that it poses any real danger to Iranian (or any other) satellites. Due to its small payload, speculations that it might be used for orbital bombardment also appear unrealistic. Ultimately, however, there is an intimate connection to the Iranian nuclear program that provides context to the Iranian fears. It rests in the changing role of nuclear weapons for military strategy with the advance of science and technological capacity.

This is by no means a new development, but it was temporarily put on hold when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact collapsed, in 1991. The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), developed in the 1950s and reflecting the early realities of nuclear weapons, was already beginning to show cracks in the 1960s. The development of anti-ballistic missile systems threatened second-strike capabilities, and nuclear weapons placed in low orbit could evade early warning radars and thus enable a successful first strike. Both of these developments threatened the balance of terror, and at that point both the US and the Soviet Union acted together to preserve the status quo. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 banned nuclear weapons from space and restricted the development of anti-ballistic missile systems.

The fundamental problem of deterrence – that nuclear weapons can only serve their purpose if they are never used but if they can always be counted on as a threat – surfaced again in the 1980s, and fueled Ronald Reagan’s famous Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), often derisively dubbed “Star Wars”. The technical infeasibility of the SDI at the time, added to the collapse of the Eastern bloc at the end of the decade, and shelved the debate for a while.

However, as nuclear non-proliferation once again emerged as a pressing issue, so did the discussion of the role of nuclear weapons in military planning. “The 21st century twist that invalidates the old policy is that the greater risk is not state versus state WMD [weapons of mass destruction] use, it’s that as more countries like Pakistan and Iran and North Korea get the bomb, the odds that one or more warheads fall into the hands of less rational non-state actors grows,” David Rothkopf wrote for Foreign Policy.

In this line of thought, it is not a coincidence that US President Barack Obama’s recent Nuclear Posture Review came out right in the middle of the Iran crisis – nor that it specifically allows for a possible first-use of nuclear weapons against states such as Iran and North Korea [1]. While it is unclear how the Iranian crisis will unfold, it appears that a new policy of containment, specifically designed to counter “rogue” cases, is in the making.

“The United States does not intend for missile defense to affect the strategic balance with Russia or China,” Deputy Under Secretary of Defense James Miller said before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 20. According to Russian Internet website Gazeta.ru (and other Russian media), moreover, the US administration might be interested in developing a joint missile-defense program with Russia, aimed specifically to counter the threat from North Korea and Iran.

Such a development would cast the debate on nuclear containment in an entirely new light. An all-out war between established powers such as the US and Russia is all but unthinkable now, since the sheer number of nuclear missiles and the advanced technology available to both militaries would preclude successful defense. Mutual destruction among the main nuclear players will continue to be assured for the foreseeable future, so there is little use spending extravagant amounts of money for individual protection.

However, a joint missile defense designed to contain Third-World nuclear newcomers, who as a rule are less technologically advanced and possess a more limited capacity to build rockets, might be much more realistic. If the global powers can strike a deal among each other, they could effectively establish an exclusive superpower club.

A main attraction of nukes for rogue regimes is that they are a relatively affordable option to achieve deterrence. Nowadays, obtaining nuclear weapons has become much cheaper and easier than it ever was during the Cold War. Conventional logic, moreover, has it that once a country has achieved a nuclear status, it will be left alone; North Korea, for example, has so far got away with much more than is reasonable, even though its economy and industry are in shambles [2].

Economic calculations, therefore, continue to play a major role in proliferation: if a relatively poor country such as North Korea or Iran gets the bomb, it will boost its regional power status without having to keep up with massive military investments. This is precisely the assumption that a new containment policy would target. Should a missile defense would erode a (presumed) soon-to-come Iranian nuclear deterrent, the quality and quantity of weaponry would once again take center stage in defense planning and the Iranian regime would eventually be unable to keep up with the costs of maintaining its newly acquired regional superpower status. An updated version of Reaganomics would make proliferation unsavory.

Enter the X-37B: the latest development in a long series of military projects. The launch is yet another demonstration to the Iranians that soon their headlong quest for nuclear technology might lose a lot of its value, at least as far as possible military applications are concerned. With a number of fabulously expensive science-fiction type weapons currently being developed [3], and given the amount of money being spent on covert operations in space [4], it seems that any military race will soon be a foregone conclusion for a poor newcomer.

Moreover, we could speculate, a robotic mini shuttle-cum anti-satellite platform could one day soon occupy an important place in an anti-nuclear missile defense. It would help counter the possibility that a space-capable country such as Iran would put nuclear weapons in space to game missile defenses. Such a development may seem far-fetched, but if the Soviet Union could do it in the 1960s, smaller players might be able to do it over half a century later, too.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Obama himself suggested that there is a “move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons” and a greater focus on “conventional weapons capability [as] an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.” It is important to also watch closely the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, which began on Monday.

Preliminary reports of increasing pressure even on semi-accepted nuclear powers such as India, Pakistan, and (reputedly) Israel to disarm suggest that the superpowers are seriously determined to limit new nuclear arrivals. Sophisticated new technology such as the robotic shuttle demonstrates a very promising potential path to do so.

Notes 1.) See Nuclear Posture Review (or Nuclear Public Relations?), Foreign Policy, April 6
2.) See Cambodian lessons for South Korea, Asia Times Online, April 29
3.) See US Faces Choice on New Weapons for Fast Strikes, New York Times, April 22
4.) See US air force inks ‘tactical’ space-war deal, The Register, October 30, 2008

Victor Kotsev is a freelance journalist and political analyst with expertise in the Middle East.

Boeing X-37 / X-40

The X-37 and X-40 research efforts were originally started (by NASA and U.S. Air Force, respectively) as completely separate and unrelated programs. However, both programs have since been merged into a single one. Therefore they are both discussed on this page.

Space Maneuver Vehicle

In October 1996, Boeing received a contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Military Space Plane Technology office to build a technology demonstrator and test vehicle for a Space Maneuver Vehcile (SMV). The SMV was defined as an unmanned reusable spacecraft, which could be launched into orbit on the Space Shuttle or an expendable booster, spend up to a year maneuvering in orbit, and then return with a fully automatic gliding reentry for a horizontal landing on a predesignated runway. Tasks of the SMV would include delivery of small payloads to orbit, remote examination of satellites, and orbital reconnaissance.

The first vehicle built under the SMV program was the ITTB (Integrated Technology Test Bed), a 90% scale unpowered version of the SMV. The ITTB was designed to test the final low-speed approach and landing phase of the return from space. In 1997, the designation X-40A was allocated to the SMV, but that designator was soon reassigned to the ITTB. After thorough static testing, the X-40A first flew on 11 August 1998. The vehicle was dropped at 2740 m (9000 ft) from a cradle below a UH-60 helicopter, and successfully flew to an automatic landing on a designated runway at Holloman AFB.

Photo: Jim Ross, NASA

X-40A

The X-40A is essentially a winged lifting body with a V-tail. It is equipped with a tricycle landing gear and a GPS/INS precision navigation system. The full-scale SMV, designated X-40B, would have added a liquid-propellant rocket propulsion system, a reusable thermal protection system, a dorsal payload bay and other systems necessary for operations in space.

Photo: Tom Tschida, NASA

X-40A

Not long after the first, and at that time only, flight of the X-40A, the USAF decided to give the X-40A to NASA for use as a scaled low-speed test bed for the X-37 program (q.v. below for information on the use of the X-40A by NASA). Nothing has come forward on the planned X-40B SMV, and it is assumed that this part of the program has been terminated and absorbed by the X-37A.

Future-X

In 1996, NASA first mentioned plans for a research effort labeled Future-X. This was to comprise a variety of flight test articles to evaluate selected RLV (Reusable Launch Vehicle) technologies in addition to the full-scale X-33 and X-34 programs. The long term plan was that several relatively low-cost “Pathfinder” vehicles, which would each be focused on a certain RLV aspect, would be followed by more ambitious “Trailblazer” demonstrations of RLVs integrating technologies tested by “Pathfinder” missions. By late 1996, the NASA had reserved the X-37 designator for the Future-X program even though no specific vehicle development had been initiated at that time.

To implement the Future-X “Pathfinder” goals, NASA received submissions from Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Boeing’s proposal was to build a spacecraft based on its X-40/SMV design for the U.S. Air Force. This was accepted by NASA in December 1998, and in July 1999 a contract was signed for construction of one X-37A vehicle.

Image: NASA

X-37A

The X-37A airframe is essentially the X-40A scaled up to about 120%. In addition to the X-40A’s features, the X-37A is fully equipped for space flight, having a rocket engine for orbital maneuvers, an advanced reusable thermal protection system, a payload bay and a navigation/flight-control system for orbital and atmospheric flight. As such, the X-37A is to all intents and purposes identical to the USAF’s planned X-40B SMV.

Image: NASA

X-37A

In early 2000, the Air Force agreed to participate in the X-37 program, and the X-40A was transferred to NASA to serve as a testbed for the X-37A’s approach and landing phase. For this purpose, the X-40A was modified with a Space Integrated GPS/INS (SIGI) system, a Calculated Air Data System (CADS) and modified instrumentation and telemetry equipment. For the NASA trials, the X-40A was carried aloft to 4500 m (15000 ft) beneath a CH-47D helicopter. Between 4 April and 19 May 2001, the vehicle successfully conducted seven free flights.

The original schedule called for orbital X-37 flights as early as 2002. The X-37A was to be carried into space inside the Space Shuttle cargo bay (which dictated the maximum possible wing span), and released for automatic landings. However, in 2001 the USAF pulled out of the project, and the ensuing funding difficulties inevitably led to delays. But in 2002 the X-37 contract was amended to cover two instead of only one vehicle, one for the atmospheric drop tests (dubbed Approach and Landing Test Vehicle, ALTV) and one for orbital tests. At that time, the atmospheric tests were scheduled for late 2004, while the first orbital flight (launched by an expendable booster) was tentatively planned for 2006.

Photo: Rod Davis, Boeing

X-37A (ALTV)

However, in late 2003 NASA told Boeing to reduce workload on the orbital vehicle, and still later that part of the program was completely put on hold. In early 2004, NASA stated that the X-37 no longer fitted its long term agenda, and in September that year, control of the X-37A program was transferred to the DOD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Photo: © Alan Radecki

X-37A (ALTV)

The X-37A’s carrier aircraft for atmospheric drop tests is the Scaled Composites “White Knight” aircraft (carrier of the “SpaceShip One” X-Prize vehicle). Preparation of test flights began in early 2005, and included several captive flights of the ALTV under the “White Knight”. On 7 April 2006, the X-37A finally made its first free glide flight. The flight itself was successful, but the vehicle ran off the runway after touchdown, damaging the nose landing gear. The second flight occurred on 18 August, and the third and final one on 26 September.

Photo: © Alan Radecki

X-37A (ALTV) under “White Knight”

In November 2006, the U.S. Air Force announced that it is going to continue the development of an orbital X-37 variant. This will be known as the X-37B OTV (Orbital Test Vehicle). According to the official USAF statement, the OTV’s objectives will be “risk reduction, experimentation, and operational concept development for reusable space vehicle technologies, in support of long-term developmental space objectives.” The first flight of the X-37B, to be launched on top of an Atlas V booster, was originally scheduled for late 2008, but has been postponed serveral times. At the time of this writing, it is planned for April 2010. The mission will test the vehicle’s navigation, guidance and control systems, as well as the autonomous reentry and landing sequence.

Image: USAF

X-37B

Specifications

Note: Data given by several sources show slight variations. Figures given below may therefore be inaccurate!

Data for X-37A, X-40A:

	X-37A	X-40A
Length	8.38 m (27 ft 6 in)	w/o pitot: 6.70 m (22 ft 0 in) (pitot: 1.5 m (5 ft))
Wingspan	4.57 m (15 ft 0 in)	3.51 m (11 ft 6 in)
Height	2.76 m (9 ft 0.5 in)	2.20 m (7 ft 2.5 in)
Weight	5400 kg (12000 lb)	1200 kg (2650 lb)
Speed	Mach 25 (on reentry)	subsonic
Propulsion	Rocketdyne AR2-3 liquid-fueled rocket; 31 kN (7000 lb)	none

Main Sources

[1] Jay Miller: “The X-Planes, X-1 to X-45”, Midland Publishing, 2001
[2] Boeing Website
[3] SPACE.com News Website

Back to Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, Appendix 4

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/x-37.html