UPDATE (April 23, 2010): The X-37B was successfully launched at 19:52 EDT (23:52 GMT) yesterday, April 22.

ORIGINAL STORY (April 21, 2010): The Air Force’s experimental X-37B spaceplane is on the pad at Cape Canaveral, FL ready for launch tomorrow evening on an Atlas 5, according to Spaceflightnow.com. Some call it a spaceplane, some call it a mini-shuttle, and its classified mission adds an air of suspense and mystery.

The program started as a NASA effort to build a crew taxi for the International Space Station. Cancelled after President Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, it was transferred to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and then to the Air Force. In a media teleconference yesterday, Gary Payton, Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space Programs said that the mission duration is still up in the air: “In all honesty, we don’t know when it’s coming back.” The spaceplace will land at Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA or Edwards Air Force Base, CA when it does return, and Payton emphasized that what they want to learn from the program is as much about what happens on the ground as in space.

“And then probably the most important demonstration is again on the ground. Once we get the bird back, see what it really takes to turn this bird around and get it ready to go fly again, to learn payload change-out on the ground, to learn how much it really costs to do this turn-around on the ground with these new technologies on the X37 itself.

“So it’s as much a ground experiment in low cost O&M, ops and maintenance, the low cost ops and maintenance on the ground as it is an on-orbit experiment with the vehicle itself.”

What it will do on orbit is still closely held, but Payton offered these comments:

“Like in many of our space launches, not all of them but many of them, the actual on-orbit activities we do classify. So we’re doing that in this case for the actual experimental payloads that are on orbit with the X37. But again, our top priority is demonstrating the vehicle itself with its autonomous flight control systems, new generation of silica tile, and a wealth of other new technologies that are sort of one generation beyond the shuttle.”

In about two weeks, the Air Force is scheduled to launch an unusual payload on an Atlas 5 booster – an automated mini space shuttle. Designated the X-37B, it is the product of a cancelled NASA program to build an Orbital Space Plane (OSP) that was to take crews to and from the International Space Station (ISS). NASA terminated that program when President Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004 and the ISS fell out of vogue because the money used for ISS and OSP was needed instead to return humans to the Moon and someday go on to Mars.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and later the Air Force continued work on the winged vehicle, which is reportedly about one-quarter the size of the space shuttle. Now called the Orbital Test Vehicle, reports say that it can stay in orbit for up to nine months before returning to Earth with whatever payload it carries. Its mission is classified so there has been no public announcement about what it will carry on its maiden launch April 19 and its future thereafter is uncertain.

The X-37B is one of a long line of experimental (X) air- and space-planes. The X-15 of the 1950s and 1960s is perhaps the best known of the series.

Editor’s Note: As many rue the imminent end of the U.S. ability to launch people into space, one must ask whether X-37B might be a shortcut to reestablishing such a capability. This is only a test flight, of course, and costs and technical risk would have to examined, but perhaps this is a fortuitous convergence of national security and civil requirements that kept one of NASA’s previous human space flight efforts alive despite the erratic course of U.S. human space flight policy.

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearing that had been scheduled for Wednesday will be held tomorrow morning, Friday, March 26, at 9:00 am, instead. Witnesses include Gen. Kevin Chilton, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Adm. Robert Willard, Commander of U.S. Pacific Command, and Gen. Walter Sharp, Commander of United Nations Command/Combined Forces Command/U.S. Forces Korea. Room 216 Hart Senate Office Building.

An analysis of the Department of Defense (DOD) FY2011 budget request by Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation and Samuel Black of the Stimson Center concludes that funding for space situation awareness would increase, while counterspace and space control programs would decrease, if Congress approves the request.

“The Air Force budget requests for several programs dedicated to improving space situation awareness add up to almost $900 million, an increase of roughly 70 percent from the estimated FY 10 budget of $530 million. Meanwhile, budgets for Counterspace and Space Control programs are projected to fall by roughly 50 percent each between FY 2010 and FY 2015.”

The complete analysis with many pages of budget charts is available on the Secure World Foundation’s website.

After years of struggling with cost growth and schedule slips in most of its satellite acquisition programs, the Department of Defense (DOD) is poised to see the launches of the first satellites in four new spacecraft series in 2010 according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Testifying before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, GAO’s Cristina Chaplain credited DOD for taking the “important step of acknowledging the acquisition problems of the past and … action to address them, including better management of the acquisition process and oversight of its contractors.” Several programs have gotten past “technical and other obstacles and are close to begin delivering capability.” This year, the first satellites in the Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF, Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF), and Space Based Surveillance Satellite (SBSS) series are expected to be launched. In addition, the first launch for the geostationary component of the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) is scheduled, but GAO was not quite convinced that the December 2010 launch date will be met.

Challenges do remain, GAO stressed, especially in aligning space system components (satellites, ground systems and user terminals), and a crowded launch manifest that could mean longer delays for missions that miss their original launch date. Perhaps most importantly, while congratulating DOD on the progress it has made on reforming its acquisition practices, GAO also said that “Lastly, DOD needs to decide how best to organize, lead, and support space activities. If it does not do so, its commitments to reforms may not be sustainable.”

A webcast of the hearing and the statements of GAO and other witnesses are available on the committee’s website.

The Senate finally confirmed Erin Conaton as the new Air Force Under Secretary. Her nomination and those of other Pentagon nominees had been blocked by Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) because of the aerial refueling tanker controversy according to Congress Daily (subscription required). Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) threatened a procedural move that would have required Senator Shelby and other Senators blocking Pentagon nominations to explain their “holds” on the Senate floor so the holds were released, Congress Daily reported. Conaton’s was one of several Pentagon nominations approved tonight.

Five months into FY2010, the House finally passed the FY2010 Intelligence Authorization bill (H.R. 2701). It was scheduled for floor action last summer, but pulled from consideration because of a threatened presidential veto over who in Congress must be briefed on the most sensitive classified issues.

A compromise was reached and the bill passed through the House Rules Committee last week although a political battle later ensued over language that was added during that process that would have set criminal penalties for CIA interrogators and others who use cruel or inhuman methods. Opponents prevailed and the bill went back to the Rules Committee to have that provision removed. The bill then returned to the floor and was passed Friday morning.

Among other things, the intelligence authorization bill authorizes activities of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and operates the nation’s spy satellites.

A seminar on “Enhancing Space Security: Expert Recommendations” is scheduled for February 23, 2010 from 3:00-4:30 pm in Washington, DC. Sponsored by the Secure World Foundation (SWF), speakers include SWF’s executive director, Ray Williamson, as well as Laurence Nardon from France’s Institut Francais de Relations Internationales (IFRI) and Bruce McDonald from the U.S. Institute of Peace. The event is free, but an RSVP is required. See SWF’s website for the agenda and RSVP instructions.

The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) released February 1 by the Department of Defense (DOD) is pretty light on its discussion of national security space policy, but provides a glimpse of DOD’s current thinking on a few broad space issues. Meanwhile, DOD officially acknowledged that the congressionally-required Space Posture Review (SPR) will be delayed by several months.

Michele Flournoy, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, said that DOD decided to wait until the overall review of U.S. space policy being led by the National Security Council is done before wrapping up the SPR –

“The Space Posture Review, which is a departmental effort, was being conducted in parallel with a presidential review of our national space policy. And as we got into that interagency review, we really came to believe it’s very important to set the parameters of that first, before firming up our own conclusions in the Space Posture Review.

“And so we decided to sequence them a little bit more, and to allow the interagency review to have time to be completed. In the meantime, we’ll offer Congress an interim report on the Space Posture Review that details our current posture and programs. But then we’ll aim to turn in our new Space Posture Review following on the president’s strategy in the June time frame.”

The most lengthy passage in the QDR addressing space policy calls for working more closely with international and commercial partners:

“Assure access to space and the use of space assets. The Department, through the implementation of priorities from the Space Posture Review, will explore opportunities to leverage growing international and commercial expertise to enhance U.S. capabilities and reduce the vulnerability of space systems and their supporting ground infrastructure. The Department will broaden and deepen relationships with other nations and private firms to create mutually beneficial partnerships to share capabilities, systems, technology, and personnel, while ensuring that we also protect sensitive sources and methods. Working both bilaterally and multilaterally, the Department will promote spaceflight safety. Air Force investments in space situational awareness will support U.S. efforts by enhancing the ability to attribute actions in space and gain greater understanding of events in space. Ongoing implementation of the 2008 Space Protection Strategy will reduce vulnerabilities of space systems, and fielding capabilities for rapid augmentation and reconstitution of space capabilities will enhance the overall resiliency of space architectures.” (pp. 33-34)

Going a step further, the QDR also says that “The United States will work with like-minded nations to foster norms regarding behavior in domains where an attack on one nation has consequences for all-especially in space and cyberspace.”

Finally, antisatellite tests and the growth in the number of space-faring nations are cited as two of several “recent trends” that “highlight growing challenges to stability throughout the global commons.”

The new charter for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is “lost in space” according to DODBuzz, which has been tracking the development of a new charter for the agency that builds and operates U.S. spy satellites. Though DODBuzz predicted in November that the new charter was imminent, apparently the Department of Defense (DOD) general counsel’s office is worried that that it may expand NRO’s “powers into areas governed by the military services,” according to the website, which adds that the issue revolves around what constitutes “overhead reconnaissance systems.” Stay tuned.