Its mission is shrouded in secrecy, a media blackout was enforced after its launch and there are fears it could be a space weapon.But whatever its purpose, the U.S. Air Force's latest space plane has met its match in a band of amateur satellite sleuths who tracked it down in the night sky - just as they did with its predecessor.
The unmanned plane, known as the OTV-2, was caught on camera by an amateur skywatcher in Ontario.
It had already been spotted two weeks before in the skies above Cape Town, by the same 
The Boeing-built X-37B robotic spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on March 9, inside an Atlas 5 rocket.
The plane, which looks like a miniature version of a NASA space shuttle, is known officially as Orbital Test Vehicle 2 (OTV-2) and is the second to be launched by the U.S. Airforce in two years.
USAF officials told Space.com the vehicle is being used to test out new spacecraft technologies, but the website reports countries such as Russia and China have raised fears it could be a secret weapon.
No comments:
Post a Comment