Shenanigans! Secret Air Force Space Vehicle launched prior to n. koreas first successful satellite launch

http://beforeitsnews.com/space/2012/12/shenanigans-secret-air-force-space-vehicle-launched-prior-to-n-koreas-first-successful-satellite-launch-2451802.html         

Shenanigans! Secret Air Force Space Vehicle launched prior to n. koreas first successful satellite launch

Thursday, December 13, 2012 17:08

what are they up to, way up there? who the hell knows? but the u.s. air force did launch a secret, unmanned space vehicle the day before north korea startled the world by successfully launching it’s first ever satellite. are we about to get involved in orbital warfare?

An experimental robotic space plane was launched into orbit atop an Atlas V rocket Tuesday for a classified Air Force mission that could last more than nine months.

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The 19-story Atlas V and the space plane, dubbed the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida just after 1 p.m. Eastern time.
The unmanned X-37B, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, is 29 feet long with a wingspan of 15 feet. The spacecraft draws solar power for energy using unfolding panels.
While the Air Force has said the space plane is designed to stay in orbit for 270 days, it hasn’t said much about the overall mission. It has said only that the vehicle provides a way to test new technologies in outer space.
This is the third time that the Air Force will send an X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle into orbit.
The first X-37B was launched in April 2010 and landed 224 days later on a 15,000-foot airstrip at Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara. The second X-37B spent 469 days in space.
The X-37B vehicles were built by Boeing Co. in Huntington Beach. Engineering work was done at the company’s facilities in Huntington Beach and Seal Beach. Components also came from Boeing’s satellite-making plant in El Segundo.
- from the l.a. times

Real-time satellite tracker shows precise location of North Korea’s new satellite

North Korea’s first-ever successful launch of a satellite into Earth’s orbit accomplished two things for Pyongyang: It demonstrated to the world that the country is that much closer to building a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile, and it showed off the government’s strength, for the benefit of North Korean citizens. But there’s another, incidental effect of the launch: It’s deposited a North Korean satellite into the atmosphere.
If you’re so inclined, you can actually track that satellite’s precise location at the Web site n2yo.com. As of this writing, the Kwangmyongsong-3 Unit 2 satellite (its name, which means “bright star,” comes from a Chinese-language poem by founding North Korean leader Kim Il Sung) is soaring approximately 350 miles above Germany, moving at a rate of 4.7 miles per second. The satellite has a reported orbital period of 96 minutes, meaning that it will circle the Earth in about the time it takes to watch “Team America: World Police.”