Future Reconnaissance Satellites?

[ValoWay]

“I think that’s probably what they’re not telling you, that there are payloads in there that might be part of the design for future reconnaissance satellites,” James Andrew Lewis, director and senior fellow in the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Air & Space magazine in early 2016.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/details-about-air-force-space-plane-that-spent-2-years-in-space-2017-5

What do you think are they actually doing with the US military X-37B space plane?

[Onkel Neal]

I dunno, watching North Korea and Iran, probably.

[ikalugin]

One of the two:
- recon payload that you can move a lot between the orbits and thus react to the needs of intell data consumers.
- orbital inspection, checking out the new orbital payloads of 3rd parties.

[Rockstar]

Doing the same with the x37b they did with expendable platforms. Except now we can bring back all sorts of way kewl stuff we find up there.

[Platapus]

could also be a good platform for experimental satellites.

Build a prototype, put it in orbit, see how the analysts use it. Next month, do it again.