The U.S. military’s X-37B space plane is set to launch Thursday, Dec. 28 in the evening on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. The spacecraft has a four-hour window starting at 7 p.m. to take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The SpaceX Falcon heavy is at pad 39A to prepare for tomorrow’s launch.
Falcon Heavy is rolling out to 39A ahead of Thursday's launch from 39A.https://t.co/tANS0dX6yf
(Also, Starship tower in the clouds!) pic.twitter.com/KscWCaus5q
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) December 27, 2023
The December launch dates, even with delays, put the X-37B’s next mission launch roughly around the same time as China’s space plane launch. China launched into orbit earlier this month. China for its part is even more secretive about the project, describing it only as a reusable test spacecraft, but the craft is apparently similar to the American one.
Just four days after being launched on its third mission, China’s reusable space plane, Shenlong, aka Divine Dragon, released six unidentified objects in Earth’s orbit. They found mystery objects – designated OBJECT A, B, C, D, E, and F – emitting emissions.
We have confirmation of S-band signals from the 3rd Chinese 'spaceplane' mission.
However, this time the 'mysterious wingman' emitter is only sending signals intermittently but it is fading deeply like earlier missions. 🧵⬇️ pic.twitter.com/lD2YtQYaFw
— Scott Tilley 🇺🇦 (@coastal8049) December 17, 2023
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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