Air Force officials declined to comment on speculation that the US military is using the X-37B spaceplane currently on orbit to keep tabs on Chinese activities in space, as a recent press report indicated. USAF spokeswoman Maj. Tracy Bunko told the Daily Report that officials were “really uncomfortable talking about specific orbits and missions” of the X-37B because they are classified. This Boeing-built spaceplane, the second X-37B in the series, is a “technology demonstrator,” known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2, that the Air Force launched into space last March. It is conducting “on-orbit experimentation to meets its test objectives” in low Earth orbit, said Bunko. Britain’s Spaceflight Magazine suggested in a recent article picked up by the BBC that the X-37B might be monitoring Tiangong 1—China’s recently launched space laboratory—noting similarities between the two objects’ orbits. However, MSNBC contradicted that claim, quoting a former USAF orbital analyst who said the orbits actually are quite different. “I would go as far as to say, ‘no chance,'” Brian Weeden, a technical advisor with Secure World Foundation, told MSNBC.
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. may have moved on from Air Force Chief of Staff to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but he is keeping an eye on the Air Force’s effort to “re-optimize for great power competition”—and is pleased by what he sees. At a Defense Writers Group meeting March…