Secret U.S. space plane prepares to land

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., June 15 (UPI) - A U.S. Air Force space plane in orbit for more than a year will come back to Earth this weekend, say officials who remained mum on the mission's purpose.

The robotic X-37B, after 15 months in space, is set to land Saturday at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, although weather and other factors could change that, officials said.

"We continue to monitor weather and technical conditions day by day to ensure conditions are safe for landing," Vandenberg spokesman Jeremy Eggers told SPACE.com. "At this time, the next available opportunity is Saturday, dependent upon weather and technical conditions. The landing window extends through June 18."

The unmanned X-37B looks like a much-shrunken version of NASA's now-retired space shuttle; two X-37Bs could fit into the payload bay of one of the shuttles now on their way to museums.

The space plane, by comparison, has a payload bay the size of a pickup truck bed.

The Boeing-built X-37B, powered by a solar array that lets it remain in orbit for long periods, is designed to land itself on a runway without the aid of a human controller.

Private Dragon Spacecraft Is 'Golden Spike' of Final Frontier, Astronaut Says

by Robert Z. Pearlman, collectSPACE.com Editor

HOUSTON — The arrival of the first commercial spacecraft at the International Space Station this week is tantamount to the golden spike that completed the first railroad to span the United States 143 years ago this month, an astronaut on the orbiting lab said Saturday (May 26).

"We all remember the completion of the transcontinental railroad, which opened up the western frontier of the United States and it was celebrated by pounding in a golden spike," NASA astronaut Don Pettit radioed from inside the privately-built Dragon spacecraft. "This is sort of the equivalent of the golden spike."

The robotic Dragon space capsule, which was designed by Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) was captured via robotic arm by Pettit and attached to the space station on Friday (May 25). Today, Pettit opened the hatch to the cargo craft and was the first to go inside.

"One other interesting detail, nobody remembers who pounded that golden spike in. The important thing to remember was that the railroad was completed and was now open for use to help settle the western frontier," Pettit added.

This test flight, conducted under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation (COTS) program, is paving the way for a change in how the space agency launches cargo and, eventually, astronauts to the space station. SpaceX, headed by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to provide 12 Dragon cargo ship flights to the station, not counting this test flight.