Spy the spyplane
Look, up in the air! Its a bird! Its a plane! No, its the Air Force’s X-37B robotic spacecraft. Currently on its maiden voyage, the five and a half ton X-37B was carried to orbit on April 22nd by an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The project has been something of an open secret since its early design stages 11 years ago when it was under development by NASA. However, since launch, the Air Force has remained quiet about the X-37B’s whereabouts. But, it took less than a month for a worldwide cadre of amateur sky watchers to sleuth out the details of its orbit.
The ‘X’ designation stands for experimental. According to Air Force officials, if all systems check out, the X-37B will provide our national defense with new capabilities for surveillance and reconnaissance. Civilian experts suggest that the spacecraft will find use as a platform to test new generation spy satellite technology.
Depending upon the needs of the Air Force in a combat or threat situation, the X-37B could be retrieved and customized with a flexible array of optical and radar sensors before returning to orbit. This would give the military a rapid response platform to supplement its orbiting constellation of satellites.
No doubt there are important reasons for why the Air Force has classified the intended and actual use of the X-37B. But the dearth of public information regarding its flight only served to motivate a dedicated network of amateur sky watchers with experience in spacecraft tracking.
The putative leader behind the effort is Greg Roberts of Cape Town, South Africa. Roberts and his team have successfully found and tracked just about every orbiting object launched in the last five years. If early observations are correct, it seems that they may have this one nailed.
The team members are so confident in their projections that the on-line satellite tracking site www.heavens-above.com has posted visible pass information for the X-37B based upon the group’s calculations. Northern hemisphere locations including New Mexico are favored through the Memorial Day holiday weekend and into the early days of June.
If you want to try your hand at spying the spy plane, point your browser to www.heavens-above.com and create a log-in. Next, be sure to change the location setting to the town nearest you to get accurate pass information. Then, break out the Groucho glasses or don your best disguise and watch the watchers.
