No landing date yet for Air Force's mystery craft

[Dover]

Source: AP

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A secretive unmanned space plane is staying in orbit a little longer.

The experimental Air Force craft has been circling Earth for about nine months. The X-37B orbital test vehicle was due to land in California this week, but the Air Force said Tuesday that the mission will be extended. A landing date has not been set.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/no-landing-date-yet-air-forces-mystery-craft-173117657.html

[red dog 1]

1. Staying in orbit "a little while longer"?...Could it be they've lost control of it?

Just posing the question!

[Dover]

2. OR maybe its intended 'mission' is extended....n/t

[backscatter712]

5. This spy bird is taking more pictures...

It's designed to stay up there for a long time.

[Dover]

7. Well maybe it has something to do with what's going down in Iran...n/t

[sakabatou]

3. If you wanna know what it looks like...

[HowHeThinks]

4. I saw this thing...........

fly over one night. I didn't know what it was. It's altitude varies from very close to the earth to a more typical orbit for a space shuttle. When I saw it, it was in a very close orbit to the earth, appearing quite large. I didn't know what it was and thought I'd perhaps finally seen one of those elusive "UFOs" we hear about from time to time. It was at a constant speed and course, from NNE to SSW, but again, VERY close to earth. It had no aircraft running lights typical of garden variety aircraft. After some investigation, though, I found that it was this thing. Buzz kill!

Here's a web site that tracks all of our man made junk orbiting the earth. http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html

It's invaluable for seeing what's in the sky at any given time, tracking the space station etc..

[Dover]

6. ... Well technically, from your perspective it WAS an unidentified flying object..lol! n/t

[Lucinda]

8. Hmmmm....verrah interesting.

:hi: