There’s a lot of buzz amidst the aerospace crowd these days about the X37B, a new satellite system being developed by the US Air Force. The Air Force has been involved in plenty of different military satellites, so what makes the X37B so new and different? Well, actually, it’s that the X37B is NOT so new and different; when you see it, the first thing you say is that ‘I’ve seen this before’. Basically, the X37B looks like a smaller, non-piloted version of the Space Shuttle. Although it is launched a bit differently than the Shuttle was, it will glide back to earth after its mission and land on an airplane runway, and then be re-used, just like the Shuttle.

Many space program analysts regard the Space Shuttle as a failure in both engineering design and in economic realities. It was supposed to make traveling into low earth orbit with humans and cargo both safer and cheaper than the old Apollo, Gemini and Mercury capsules, which were all one-use only. The Shuttle supposedly made more sense by being re-usable. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be either safer or cheaper. The Russian space program tried out a shuttle-like ship, but decided to stick with its tried-and-true Soyuz capsule. And the American manned space program has now turned back to the old capsule on top of booster rocket design (even though NASA’s Ares-Orion rocket program has been canceled, its possible replacement for low earth orbit missions, the commercial Dragon / Falcon rocket from SpaceX, is also a classic capsule and booster). So why is the Air Force messing around with an (assumedly) unmanned mini-Shuttle?

They aren’t saying right now. The X37B is sort-of a “dark” project. But it has a lot of money behind it and the first test flight went off last week. There’s plenty of speculation on the Internet about what the USAF’s plans are for the X37B. Maybe it will test space-based weapons systems (including the imaginatively-named “Rods from God” idea). Maybe it will capture enemy satellites and bring them back for analysis. Maybe it can be made to dock with the International Space Station. Maybe they can outfit it as to carry one or two men.

Whatever, this is something to watch. The Air Force seems willing to pay a premium for an expensive space system whose major justification is that it can bring stuff back from earth orbit. Possibly including humans. Most interesting – the USA may finally be developing a military space ship. X37B – don’t forget that name, you may be hearing more about it in the future.