Milky Way Galaxy (Photo : Facebook)
The United States Air Force will be launching the X-37B for its fourth mission on May 20 to take place between 10:45 and 2:45 p.m. EDT though, the mission engineers will later communicate the exact time.
According to NBC News, all the payload aboard the plane is classified; hence, no information could be furnished in that regard. However, rejecting speculations of X-37B carrying space weapons, Air Force officials clarified that the flight will merely test a few new space technologies.
This is the fourth flight of the reusable unmanned vehicle which logged over 1300 days in space in its previous three stints. Weather experts vouch for a 60 percent chance of a favorable take off.
Director of Air Force rapid Capabilities Office, Randy Walden expressed his excitement for the mission and added that from conducting initial checkouts of the vehicle the research now progressed to testing payloads aboard the Space Plane.
Besides, the US Space Agency NASA will be flying an experiment to test the effects of space environment on approximately 100 different kinds of substances under its Materials Exposure and Technology Innovation in Space initiative.
According to Tech Times, Planetary Society's Light Sail project will also be aboard the flight. This project aims to test whether small spacecrafts could be driven using light from the Sun. The first actual flight of this initiative will be flown in 2016.
The plane uses the Hall Current Thrusters engine, which is presently being used in some communication satellites of the Department of Defense. These devices generate Xenon gas to create a thrust for spacecrafts to stay within the Earth's orbit.
