BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – SpaceX on Tuesday again delayed the launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which was set to launch the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and U.S. Space Force’s seventh X-37B mission.
The USSF-52 launch, aka OTV-7, was scheduled to launch Monday night and then Tuesday night, but SpaceX posted on X that it would be standing down from the launch until further notice.
We are standing down from tomorrow’s Falcon Heavy launch of USSF-52 to perform additional system checkouts. The payload remains healthy while teams work toward the next best launch opportunity. We’re also keeping an eye on the weather and will announce a new launch date once… pic.twitter.com/xo6TwkqatD
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 13, 2023
Though designated a top secret mission, launch operators have made statements concerning some of the X-37B mission. The uncrewed, solar-powered, Boeing-built reusable vessel will be used for testing, such as operating the spaceplane in varying orbits, investigating the effects of radiation on different materials and “experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies,” according to a news release.
“We are excited to expand the envelope of the reusable X-37B’s capabilities, using the flight-proven service module and Falcon Heavy rocket to fly multiple cutting-edge experiments for the Department of the Air Force and its partners,” Lt. Col. Joseph Fritschen, X-37B program director, said earlier in a statement.
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This launch will mark the first time an X-37B has hitched a ride on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, having used a United Launch Alliance Atlas V in its last jaunt.
That was the spaceplane’s sixth mission — OTV-6, which launched in May 2020, lasted 908 days and landed last November — which was widely believed to have caused a stir in Central Florida when loud sonic booms were heard across the state early Nov. 12, 2022. Speculative social media posts began to crop up in the 5 a.m. hour that day, with a timestamp on one resident’s surveillance video suggesting the booms were heard at 5:17 a.m.
Boeing went on to state that the X-37B officially landed at 5:22 a.m., offering no other information.
As far as what’s been outright confirmed by OTV-6′s launch operators, the mission was the X-37B’s first to include a service module that made more experimentation possible than in previous excursions.
The spacecraft carried the Naval Research Laboratory’s Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module experiment, which transformed solar power into radio frequency microwave energy, and two NASA experiments to study the results of radiation and other space effects on a materials sample plate and seeds used to grow food. The X-37B Mission 6 also deployed FalconSat-8, a small satellite developed by the U.S. Air Force Academy and sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory.
SAF/PA | Nov. 8, 2023
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