4/8/2023 0 Comments Orbiter processing facilityAir Force has hinted that OTV-3 may touch down in Florida, perhaps landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. The previous two OTV missions landed and were serviced for flight at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Though speculation has ranged from testing new sensor technologies to reconnaissance, the details of the X-37B's mission, including its payloads and objectives, have been kept classified. What the space plane has done during its time in space remains largely a mystery. The third flight, which marked the first reuse of the two-vehicle fleet's first spacecraft, is still orbiting the Earth more than a year after its launch atop an Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office has launched three X-37B missions for unknown purposes since April 2010. "The commercialization of OPF-1 through Space Florida's project funding was a critical factor in attracting Boeing to Florida." "This project has been a great example of state and local agencies working together to create an optimal toolbox of capabilities for the customer," Frank DiBello, president of Space Florida, said in a statement released by Boeing. That facility, now referred to as the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility, or C3PF, is nearing the end of its conversion to begin manufacturing and testing the five-seat, gumdrop-shaped spacecraft. In October 2011, Boeing also took over use of OPF-3 to support its CST-100 spacecraft, a crewed capsule being developed to potentially fly NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The hangar is the second NASA OPF to be commercially leased under an agreement with Space Florida, the state's spaceport authority and aerospace development agency. Built in the late 1970s, OPF-1 has a 29,000-square-foot (2,700 sq.m.) high bay and stands 95 feet (29 m.) tall. One of three similar hangars to previously house NASA's orbiters, OPF-1 has been vacant since June 2012, when the space agency's final shuttle to fly into space, Atlantis, departed the building.
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