Bharat Rakshak

La Stampa, Italy

Pentagon Conquers Space with
Its Mysterious Super-drone

By Paolo Mastrolilli

Translated By Francesca Baldanzi

06 June 2012


Edited by Becca Prashner


Italy - La Stampa - Original Article (Italian)

It was launched more than a year ago, but the commanders are not clarifying its target.

Except that it resembles a mini-space shuttle, everything else about it is a mystery. What is American space-plane X-37B, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle? What purpose does it serve? Why has it been in orbit for over a year? What did it carry on board when it was launched on March 2011? What kind of data will be brought back when it lands back on Earth, in California in mid-June?

The top-secret operation started in 1999, when NASA launched the project to design a small unmanned spacecraft. The project was an experimentation opportunity to test new technologies. The initial cost was just under $200 million. In 2004, the initiative was transferred to the legendary Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which does scientific research for the Pentagon. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is responsible for developing computer networking, among other things. From that moment on, the X-37B has been enshrouded by mystery, and most information about it has disappeared.

As a matter of fact, we know that the spacecraft ended its first mission in 2010, taking off in April and landing 224 days later on the runway of the Vandenberg base. The second mission began in March 2011 and was initially scheduled to be completed in December, but it was extended by the Pentagon with little explanation. “Keeping the X-37 in orbit” said the program director, U.S. Lieutenant-colonel Tom McIntyre, “will provide us with additional experimentation opportunities and allow us to extract the maximum value out of the mission.” Ok, but what is the mission about? The X-37B, designed by Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems in its Huntington Beach, CA headquarters, is 9 meters long and 3 meters high, has a wingspan of 4.5 meters and weighs 4.990 kg. It looks like a small-scale shuttle and was originally meant to go right into the belly of a shuttle. Once this program was stopped, it became an unmanned spacecraft, which took off from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas rocket. Nobody could clarify what the spaceship is doing up there, though.

The spacecraft is too small to be a prototype for space explorations. It operates unmanned flights in low-earth orbit, around 300 km above earth with an orbital inclination of 42.79° from the equator. Since this route is nearly identical to Tiangong-1, the first Chinese space-station, where Beijing hopes to bring its astronauts by 2012, some orbital analysts suppose X-37B is probably spying on China's space program. However, several scientists dismissed this conjecture, because the speed and distance between the two objects orbiting do not allow good control.

Those who have tracked the craft’s orbit has revealed it goes past North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and, therefore, it may have to monitor these countries. Spy satellites, however, generally prefer the polar route, because it allows a more complete view of the Earth, while X-37B follows the equator. As a result, the Pentagon's story remains the only plausible version, according to which the spacecraft is a test bed for new technologies to be used elsewhere. This hypothesis does not satisfy anyone, and a new fascinating and dangerous rumor circulates: X-37B is the first orbiting weapon. It has been designed to destroy enemy satellites, and as a space-capable bomber. Is it science fiction or a new frontier of war?

An early version of the V-22, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but cruises like an airplane, crashed four times during testing between 1991 and 2000, killing 30 people. Since entering frontline service in 2009, three of the Air Force’s roughly 20 V-22s have been destroyed or badly damaged in accidents, at the cost of four lives. Likewise, in the last 10 years the Marines’ fleet of some 200 Ospreys has suffered around a dozen major accidents resulting in several destroyed aircraft and no fewer than three deaths.
The Marines, who tout the Osprey as their “safest tactical rotorcraft,” have used semantic games and fudged statistics to obscure the V-22′s true safety record.

It’s an aircraft with a reputation for falling from the sky. But on at least one occasion, the U.S. military’s controversial V-22 Osprey tiltrotor — a hybrid transport that takes off like a helicopter and cruises like an airplane, thanks to its rotating engine nacelles — did just the opposite. It flew upward, out of control of its pilots.

Yet the Marines and the Naval Safety Center ultimately decided that the Osprey’s dangerous joyride didn’t count as a serious flying accident, known in Pentagon parlance as a “Class A flight mishap.” The reason, said Capt. Brian Block, a Marine spokesman: The aircraft wasn’t supposed to take off just then; therefore, it’s not a flight problem. If a V-22 suffers damage while preparing to launch or after landing, or if the crew does not explicitly command the aircraft to take off but it does anyways, then the accident doesn’t count as a flight accident.

MBDA is satisfied with the results of its recently-completed live firing campaign with the Meteor beyond visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM), and will deliver its first production rounds before year-end, says Andy Bradford, the company's chief engineer and head of the project.

Three electronic protection measures firings conducted at the Aberporth test range off the west Wales coast earlier this year from Panavia Tornado F2 trials aircraft resulted in direct hits on Selex Galileo Mirach target drones, Bradford says, despite their use of jamming equipment and chaff.

In all, 21 Meteor missiles fitted with telemetry equipment were fired during a development and test campaign conducted for lead customer the UK and its partner nations France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

"The firing campaign has given us very good results, and good performance," Bradford said at MBDA's Stevenage site in Hertfordshire on 26 June. "Meteor does what it is meant to do."

In both modes, the Yak-130 features anti-spin protection. We climbed rapidly to 10,000m and with all FBW limiters off, I entered into a two-turn spin to the left from a level entry. The spin mode was very stable in both the pitch and yaw axis and had a moderately low yaw rate. Recovery was instantaneous when I centralised the rudder and pushed the stick forward to around neutral. Pulling out with 4g, I levelled at 6,000m. This was the first time I had ever spun a FBW jet and it felt like a very impressive capability.

teach young pilots the joy of putting in spin

That writeup on YAK-130 is excellent. Thanks for posting Kartik.

Following caught my eye



So that clearly shows that an unstable design with FBW controls can be put into spin and recovered manually.

the U2 had inline wheels nose and back , with two outrigger wheels near midwing which were jettisoned after takeoff to save weight as it started its long slow climb to 70,000ft.
on landing it landed using the inline wheels only and as the speed slowed I think the long wings would droop and gently scrape the runway before the a/c came to a halt.

must be a true dog to try landing during high wind conditions....

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Instead of the typical tricycle landing gear, the U-2 uses a bicycle configuration with a forward set of main wheels located just behind the cockpit, and a rear set of main wheels located behind the engine. The rear wheels are coupled to the rudder to provide steering during taxiing. To maintain balance while taxiing, two auxiliary wheels, called "pogos" are added for takeoff. These fit into sockets underneath each wing at about mid-span, and fall off during takeoff. To protect the wings during landing, each wingtip has a titanium skid. After the U-2 comes to a halt, the ground crew re-installs the pogos one wing at a time, then the aircraft taxis to parking

Grune says that the Raptor's advantage lies in its stealth and ability to dominate air-to-air fights from beyond visual range. That is not disputed by USAF sources.

"Its unique capabilities are overwhelming from our first impressions in terms of modern air combat," Pfeiffer says. "But once you get to the merge, which is only a very small spectrum of air combat, in that area the Typhoon doesn't have to fear the F-22 in all aspects."

The Typhoons were stripped of their external fuel tanks and slicked off as much as possible before the encounter with the Raptors, says Grune, who adds that in that configuration, the Typhoon is an "animal".

Pfeiffer notes that the Eurofighter has better acceleration and can out-climb the F-22. ­Additionally, he says that the Raptor sinks when it is using its thrust vectoring capabilities, although one USAF source says he is skeptical of the German claims.

Overall, Grune says the two aircraft are closely matched in the visual range arena, but Pfeiffer says the Typhoon is the superior ­dogfighter.

While Grune does not directly say that the Eurofighters emerged as the overall victors, he strongly implies it.

"I put out some whiskey. If they come back with some good performances, and if you know what the goal is from a BFM setup, and you achieve that, then I will pay you whiskey," he says. "And I paid quite a lot of whiskey."

That account, however, is strongly disputed by USAF sources flying the F-22. "It sounds as though we have very different recollections as to the outcomes of the BFM engagements that were fought," one Raptor pilot says.

USAF sources say that the Typhoon has good energy and a pretty good first turn, but that they were able to outmanoeuvre the Germans due to the Raptor's thrust vectoring. Additionally, the Typhoon was not able to match the high angle of attack capability of the F-22. "We ended up with numerous gunshots," another USAF pilot says.

.....FARNBOROUGH, England (Reuters) - Sikorsky Aircraft, the helicopter maker owned by United Technologies Corp , on Sunday said it has a large backlog of international orders and sees good opportunities for growth in countries like Brazil, India, Turkey, China and Mexico."We're going to be fairly flat for the next couple of years and then it will start to pick up again as some of the international military market starts to kick in for us," he told Reuters in an interview on the eve of the Farnborough Airshow.Sikorsky was on track to finalize an eighth multi-year procurement contract to deliver different models of its popular Black Hawk helicopter to the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force -- an important deal that should help facilitate several additional foreign sales, Maurer said.He said the company had several large orders in hand from Australia, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia, among others, but those deliveries were not slated to begin until 2014.Maurer said the parent company, which is selling several other units, remained committed to Sikorsky, despite the anticipated slowdown in U.S. defense spending, and there were no current plans to sell the helicopter maker.

Operational analysis conducted by the company suggests that a fighter firing the Meteor is six to eight times more likely to survive an air-to-air engagement against a representative threat than one equipped with a currently available medium-range AAM.

Highly Agile

Although subsonic (Mach 0.93), the Yak-130 is highly agile (with an angle of attack up to 35 degrees) and maneuverable (up to +8g). It can climb to 30,000 feet in three minutes.

A high power-to-weight ratio (0.7) and advanced aerodynamic configuration with moderately swept wings smoothly blended into large fuselage root extensions allow the Yak-130 to have more than a 200-fps climb rate at 15,000 feet. This enables its use as interceptor armed with Vympel R-73E infrared air-to-air missiles, for which the pilots can designate targets using helmet-mounted sights.

Ground-attack Variant

Now Yakovlev is also working on a dedicated ground-attack variant of the Yak-130. It will differ from the baseline combat trainer in having a larger nose housing a multifunctional radar, an armor-protected pilot cockpit for one crew member instead of two and higher-power engines each developing 6,173 pounds of thrust compared to 5,511 pounds for the current production Ivchenko-Progress AI222-25.