ISLAMABAD The question wasn’t if the US Air Force’s X-37B would break itsown record for duration spent in orbit but the question was by how much?
Recently, the Boeing-made space plane touched down at Kennedy Space Centerafter 780 days in space, shattering its previous record of 717 days, 20hours and 42 minutes. Astonishingly, the numbers of days expected from thereusable aircraft were 240 days and it clocked three times more than thisas it finished its fifth mission.
According to Randy Walden, Director, USAF Rapid Capabilities Office, theaircraft met “all mission objectives.” It is pertinent to point out thatall payloads on the X-37B are classified, and authorities only providehints about it. From what we can gather, there is a thermal spreader thathelped test “experimental electronics” along with a heat pipe cooling inlong-term spaceflight. Walden did admit that the X-37B deployed “smallsatellites.”
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Details on how the craft achieved this milestone are scarce since it wasdeveloped by Boeing alongside the US Air Force, so the secrecy may bewarranted.
