The US Air Force’s X-37B unmanned Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) is being used to monitor China’s space station and to perpetuate US domination of space, suggested China’s Communist-Party organ People’s Daily citing various Chinese analyst.
The US space drone, built by Boeing, is designed for use in a potential conflict with China in or from space, suggested Professor Li Daguang from China’s National Defense University.
The X-37B and X-51A WaveRider scramjet are both designed to strengthen the US’s global force projection capability, argued professor Wang Mingzhi of PLA Air Force Command School. These technologies would give the US the capability to strike Chinese targets from or in space, he is quoted as saying.
The US’s anxiety over China’s rapid advances with its space programs spur Washington’s efforts to preserve its domination of space, said Shi Yinhong of Beijing’s Renmin University.
Once those suspicions are aroused, it’s natural for observers in China to connect the X-37B with China’s Tiangong-1 space lab launched in September of 2011 because of their contemporaneous timelines.
The Tiangong-1 was docked with the unmanned Shenzhou 8 in November of 2011 and the manned Shenzhou 9 in June of 2012.
The first X-37 was launched atop an Atlas V rocket in April 22, 2010 and successfully returned to Earth on December 3, 2010. A second X-37 was launched on March 5, 2011 and returned on June 16, 2012. The third X-37 mission was launched on December 2012 and may not return until some time in 2014, judging by the 469-day duration of its predecessor. The X-37 program had begun as a NASA project in 1999 and was transferred to the Department of Defense in 2004.
The X-37B program is designed for testing “vehicle capabilities and proving the utility and cost-effectiveness of a reusable spacecraft,” is the official explanation offered by USAF spokeswoman Tracy Bunko last year.
The first suggestion that the X-37B may have been created at least in part to spy on China’s space program was made in early 2012 in British Interplanetary Society’s Spaceflight magazine.
That suggestion is refuted by retired USAF analyst Brian Weeden who notes that the X-37B’s orbit has been radically different from that of Tiangong-1. The speed at which their paths cross is too high for any useful surveillance, he argues.
Furthermore, the X-37B is too small to serve as a weapons platform, according to analysts, supporting the US Defense Department’s denial of any such purpose. However, the technology used to develop a spacecraft capable of extended space stays coupled with multiple launches and reentries would be valuable in any future development of vehicles that may be used for space warfare as well as for scientific or other civilian purposes.
One much-discussed purpose of an unmanned orbital vehicle is to seek out and destroy hostile communication and observation satellites, depriving an enemy of capabilities crucial to modern warfare. Another purpose is the crippling of ballistic missiles as they are launched by firing powerful laser or other energy beams from an orbital platform.
