Message posted by Peter Merlin on September 17, 2011 at 7:49:57 PST:
Area 51 is not known to have had any involvement with space systems, which is not surprising since it is primarily a test site for airplanes. U.S. military space launches occur both from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, depending on orbital or range requirements. Vandenberg provides easy access to polar orbits, as well as to range assets in the Pacific. Some examples of classified space projects include X-37B and SWERVE. The X-37B is an unmanned testbed for proving technologies necessary for long duration reusable space vehicles with autonomous reentry and landing capabilities. The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth. Technologies being tested in the program include advanced guidance, navigation and control, thermal protection systems, avionics, high temperature structures and seals, conformal reusable insulation, lightweight electromechanical flight systems, and autonomous orbital flight, reentry and landing. Two vehicles have been built, so far. The first, OTV-1, launched from Cape Canaveral on April 22, 2010, and landed at Vandenberg on December 3, 2010, after approximately 91 million miles and 224 days, 8 hours and 24 minutes in orbit. The second vehicle, OTV-2, launched from Cape Canaveral on March 5, 2011, and remains in orbit at this time. Less well known is the Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle (SWERVE). Sandia National Laboratories developed the SWERVE under an exploratory tactical nuclear weapon program. With a slender cone-shaped body and small triangular fins that provided steering, the SWERVE was capable of maneuvering in the range from Mach 2 to Mach 14. Several flight tests in the late 1970s and early 1980s demonstrated maneuverability at high speeds and high angles of attack. Three SWERVE vehicles of two sizes were lofted to altitudes of 400,00 to 600,000 feet on a STRYPI rocket and reentered over the Pacific Ocean. The SWERVE 3 test in 1985 included a level flight-profile segment to extend the vehicle’s range. Because technologies demonstrated on SWERVE were applicable to development of such hypersonic vehicles as the proposed X-30 National Aero-Space Plane (NASP), Sandia offered to make a SWERVE-derived vehicle available to defense contractors and government agencies for use as a hypersonic testbed.Apparently, there has been some interest in military applications for this technology in recent years, but any such efforts remain classified.
In Reply to: Space and Area51? posted by JinTx on September 15, 2011 at 21:21:39 PST:
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