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My local engineering newspaper has an article on the X-37B craft, with an image displaying the craft within half of the shell that encapsulates it. The shell has a number of plates arranged on its inside surface, which look decidedly like silvery 'Lego' base plates:

enter image description here

What are those plates for?

The image is captioned:

This is how the X-37B is encapsulated at the top of an Atlas 5 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral launch site in Florida. Photo: U.S. Air Force courtesy photo Photo: U.S. Air Force courtesy photo.

uhoh
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KlaymenDK
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1 Answers1

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As detailed in this other answer, they provide noise dampening.

Thanks to Hobbes who is possibly a Helmholtz nut. ;)

(...gotta wait 2 days before I can close this question...)

KlaymenDK
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