X-37B Launch

X-37B launched tonight.  Here is a little info about it...

Rocket Carrying Test Spacecraft Launches
Thursday, April 22, 2010 8:40:11 PM  
Reported by Margaret Kavanagh and Greg Pallone
 
CAPE CANAVERAL -- An Atlas V rocket carrying a new test spacecraft blasted off Thursday night, but what exactly it will do remains a secret.The Air Force has called the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle its newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft.The test vehicle remains shrouded in secrecy regarding exactly what it will do once it’s in space.
 
The Orbital Test Vehicle is nearly 10 feet long, has a wingspan of nearly 15 feet, weighs 11,000 pounds, and is the world’s second reusable spacecraft. Compare that to the first reusable spacecraft, the shuttles: Each shuttle is 184 feet long, has a wingspan of 78 feet, and weighs 4.5 million pounds. Shuttle payloads can go up to 64,500 pounds, while the OTV can only handle up to 500 pounds.
 
This “new” vehicle is not completely new. NASA laid the foundation back in the late 1990s, and handed the reins over to the Air Force in 2004. It was originally planned to launch from the payload bay of a shuttle, but that changed after the Columbia disaster in 2003. Tests were done in the mid-2000s, leading up to Thursday’s launch. The test vehicle is just like a shuttle in the way it returns through the atmosphere, descends and lands on a runway, but instead of astronauts controlling it onboard, it’s controlled remotely from the ground. In the future, planners said they hope to conduct experiments and rendezvous with other spacecraft, and stay in low Earth orbit for up to 270 days. This test falls under the Air Force umbrella, which means it is classified by the military. With that, much of the mission is secret, with no word on where the space plane is being controlled from, nor how long it will be in orbit until it lands in California.