Boeing's Military Space Plane Just Slammed on the Brakes in Orbit
Tokyo drift in space.
The US military's top secret X-37B space plane, which has been orbiting the Earth since December 2023 on its current mission, has slammed on the brakes.
As detailed in a Boeing Space video, the plane has started "performing advanced aerobraking maneuvers," which are designed to lower its currently "highly elliptical orbit."
The goal is to "safely dispose of the service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation" — without having to burn copious amounts of fuel to change orbit.
It's a simple idea that could greatly extend the amount of time a spacecraft could spend in space: using the friction generated by plowing through the outer reaches of the Earth's atmosphere instead of using up propellant.
"When we aerobrake, we utilize atmospheric drag to effectively step down our apogee one pass at a time until we get to the orbital regime that we want to be in," Boeing engineer John Ealy explained in the video. "When we do this, we save enormous amounts of propellant, and that's really why aerobraking is important."
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