التصنيف: جديد

A secretive US government spaceplane has embarked on a classified mission aboard one of the world’s most powerful rockets.

The X-37B craft was launched from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.

It has been on six previous missions since 2010, most recently in 2020, but the rocket used on Thursday can take it further into space than ever before.

The Boeing-built vehicle, roughly the size of a small bus and resembling a miniature space shuttle, has stayed within Earth’s lower orbit until now – an altitude of below 1,200 miles.

But Falcon Heavy – composed of three rocket cores strapped together – is capable of carrying much heavier payloads more than 22,000 miles above the planet.

It’s led to speculation that X-37B could be destined for the orbit of more faraway locations, perhaps even Mars.

Few details have been revealed about the mission, which is operated by the US Space Force under the military’s National Security Space Launch programme.

Mission will test how plants may grow in space

X-37B is designed to conduct experiments in space, which this time will involve tests of “new orbital regimes, experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies”.

One of its tasks that has been detailed is a NASA study to see how plant seeds are affected by extended exposure to harsh space radiation, with a view to possible long-term human missions to the moon and Mars.

Once its quest is complete, X-37B should return to Earth and land via a runway – much like a plane.

But it’s not expected back until some time in 2026, with its last mission lasting more than two years.

Across its six missions so far, it has spent over a decade in orbit.

The launch – which was delayed several times due to technical issues and poor weather – comes two weeks after China‘s equally secretive Shenlong spaceplane was blasted into orbit.

Also known as Divine Dragon, it was the reusable craft’s third mission since 2020.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a US woman who plotted to kill the mother who had abused her and forced her to fake terminal illnesses, has been released from prison.

Blanchard was released from the Chillicothe Correctional Center at 3.30am, the Missouri Department of Corrections said.

She was granted parole and released three years ahead of her original release date, a spokesperson said.

The 32-year-old had been serving a 10-year sentence for second-degree murder, following the 2015 killing of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard.

The killing sparked a media frenzy and inspired the 2019 Hulu series The Act and HBO’s 2017 documentary film Mommy Dead And Dearest.

In court, it was claimed Dee Dee had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder in which a carer either makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make the person they are caring for appear sick, often for attention. It is now called fabricated or induced illness (FII) by the NHS.

Blanchard testified that her mother convinced doctors, and those around her, she had leukaemia and muscular dystrophy, forcing her to use a wheelchair and an oxygen tank when she didn’t need it.

She also claimed her mother shaved her head and forced her to eat through a feeding tube. She was isolated from the world, and home schooled while her mother cashed in donations from local charities.

Gypsy ‘regrets’ mother’s murder

After years of abuse, Blanchard conspired to kill her mother with her then boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn, who fatally stabbed Dee Dee while her daughter hid in the bathroom of their Missouri home.

But she has since said she regrets her mother’s murder.

“Nobody will ever hear me say I’m glad she’s dead or I’m proud of what I did. I regret it every single day,” she told People Magazine on Wednesday, ahead of her release.

“She didn’t deserve that. She was a sick woman and unfortunately, I wasn’t educated enough to see that. She deserved to be where I am, sitting in prison doing time for criminal behaviour.”

Godejohn was sentenced in 2018 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to recent reports, he said he would do it again if it meant saving Gypsy.