USA-226 is the first flight of the second

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

X-37B The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. It is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the United State ...

, the Orbital Test Vehicle 2 (X-37B OTV-2), an American unmanned robotic vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing

spaceplane A spaceplane is a vehicle that can fly and glide like an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere and maneuver like a spacecraft in outer space. To do so, spaceplanes must incorporate features of both aircraft and spacecraft. Orbital spaceplanes ten ...

. It was launched aboard an

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Mart ...

rocket from

Cape Canaveral , image = cape canaveral.jpg , image_size = 300 , caption = View of Cape Canaveral from space in 1991 , map = Florida#USA , map_width = 300 , type =Cape , map_caption = Location in Florida , location ...

on 5 March 2011, and landed at

Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USS General Harry Taylor (AP-145), USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in K ...

on 16 June 2012. It operated in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

. Its mission designation is part of the USA series. The spaceplane was operated by

Air Force Space Command The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

, which has not revealed the specific identity of the

payload Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...

for the first flight. The Air Force stated only that the spacecraft would "demonstrate various experiments and allow satellite sensors, subsystems, components, and associated technology to be transported into space and back."

Launch

OTV-2 was launched aboard an

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas (rocket family), Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture be ...

rocket, tail number AV-026, on 5 March 2011 from

Space Launch Complex 41 Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41), previously Launch Complex 41 (LC-41), is an active launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. As of 2020, the site is used by United Launch Alliance (ULA) for Atlas V launches. Previously, it had been use ...

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the statio ...

in Florida. It was scheduled to launch on the previous day, 4 March, but weather prevented the launch on that day, forcing the reschedule to 5 March. The launch was conducted by

United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance (ULA), legally United Launch Alliance, LLC, is an American spacecraft launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbits around Earth, a ...

. The X-37B spacecraft was originally intended to be deployed from the payload bay of a NASA

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

, but following the ''Columbia'' accident, it was transferred to a Delta II 7920, then subsequently transferred to the Atlas V following concerns over the X-37B's aerodynamic properties during launch. Prior to the installation of the spacecraft, the Atlas rocket was moved to the launch pad and performed a

wet dress rehearsal Launch vehicle system tests assess the readiness of a launch system to safely reach orbit. Launch vehicles undergo system tests before they launch. A wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and a more extensive static fire tests a fully assembled launch vehicl ...

on 4 February 2011. It was returned to the

Vertical Integration Facility The Vertical Integration Building was a building at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, located at the far south end of the industrial area supporting SLC-40 and SLC-41. The building was one of the facilities of the Integrate-Transfer- ...

the following day for final assembly.

Mission

Most of the mission parameters for the first OTV-2 flight have not been disclosed. The Air Force stated the mission time would depend on progress of the craft's experiments during orbit. On 29 November 2011 a spokesperson for the Secretary of the Air Force announced the mission was extended beyond its original life expectancy, citing ongoing experimentation. In addition to its unspecified payload, OTV-2 carried a folded solar panel in its cargo bay to power the spacecraft during its year and a half long mission.

Altitude and
ground track A ground track or ground trace is the path on the surface of a planet directly below an aircraft's or satellite's trajectory. In the case of satellites, it is also known as a suborbital track, and is the vertical projection of the satellite's or ...
resonance history

Landing

After completing its mission, OTV-2 deorbited, entered the atmosphere, and landed at

on 16 June 2012 at 05:48 PT (12:48

GMT Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a cons ...

). OTV-2 is the third reusable spaceplane to perform an automated landing after returning from orbit, the first being the Soviet Buran spacecraft in 1988 and the second, its sister craft, the OTV-1.

References

External links

Video of the landing of USA-226
{{Orbital launches in 2011 Spacecraft launched in 2011 DARPA Satellites of the United States Air Force Spacecraft which reentered in 2012 USA satellites Articles containing video clips Boeing X-37