24-01-2013, 13:50
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חבר מתאריך: 13.11.04
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כתבה מעניינת מ AVIATION WEEK על ה X-37B
התפרסמה בדצמבר 2012 ושופכת אור על ה RCO - הענף המסווג בחהא"א האחראי על האמצעי הזה
Updated Facility Office Grows Secret USAF Role
http://www.aviationweek.com/Article..._p03-519679.xml
The Air Force lists $11.2 billion in classified research and development funding for fiscal 2013, much greater than most nations' total defense R&D. About $8 billion of this is what the service calls “non-blue”—that is, funds transferred in kind or as cash to the intelligence community. That leaves $3.2 billion in classified, Air Force-only R&D. The service's procurement budget includes $17 billion for classified programs in a single line item that is equal to its entire “white” budget for aircraft, missiles and spacecraft. Although the service is the main money conduit into the intelligence community, that does not mean that such funds do not involve Air Force personnel or things that fly or go into space
A little-acknowledged interface between the Air Force and the intelligence community is the service's Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO). Formed in April 2003, the low-profile office reports at a high level, its board of directors comprising the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics (“acquisition czar” Frank Kendall) and the Air Force secretary and chief of staff. It reports in parallel with the longer-standing special programs directorate. RCO Director David Hamilton joined the office at its formation, after being involved with Air Force special test and development programs for most of the previous 20 years, including six years as director of special test programs at Edwards AFB. Groom Lake operates as a detachment of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards.
Although the RCO's only acknowledged effort is the Boeing X-37B spaceplane, its technical focus can be gauged by the fact that a recruitment notice for its deputy director identifies only three mandatory areas of “significant experience . . . low-observables, counter low-observables and electronic warfare.” The RCO leads the Air Force's involvement in the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 program, developed in 2002-06 before being put into service with Air Force and Air Force-operated CIA units. The office rescued the X-37 from limbo: Conceived in the early 1990s and considered for a time as part of the military spaceplane concept, the vehicle had been passed from the Pentagon to NASA and then to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and it had progressed only as far as subscale, low-speed glide tests when the RCO took over.
Nobody is saying what the X-37B does. It was designed to do two things: return its payload to Earth and be more maneuverable in orbit than a satellite. It carries an estimated 25-30% of its mass in hydrazine propellant (the USA-193 satellite shot down in 2008 reportedly had a 20% fuel fraction) but can afford to use it at a higher rate because its mission lasts only a year.
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