The US military has launched a new type of spacecraft into orbit from Cape Canaveral. The unmanned X-37B has caused speculation about it having been developed for military purposes.
According to the US Air Force, the winged spacecraft is set to be a platform for unspecified experiments and is able to stay on orbit for to 270 days, AP reported.
US Air Force said that the launch was a success. However, no further details have been released. Meanwhile, there is growing speculation the spaceship could be used for military gains.
“When the Air Force spends this much money on a program, they see some potential, military usefulness in it,” said former director of US Advanced Space Programs Development Robert M. Bowman.
”One possible mission would be the destruction of opposing military satellites, gaining absolute military control of space. The second would be to destroy targets on the surface of the Earth from space without warning. These two missions were the missions assigned to the Department of Defense in 1982 by Ronald Reagan in his secret defense guidance document,” says Bowman.