The proliferation of such missiles constitutes a serious threat to American naval and other vessels given the difficulties of defending against a weapon with these flight characteristics.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Arsenal of roguery

With enough tweaking, engineers assured me, they eventually could come up with reduced-distance balls that would work, even though the feel and flight characteristics might take some getting used to.

WSJ: Why a Ball Rollback Might Not Fly | Golf Journal by John Paul Newport

Lieutenant Colonel Tom McIntyre, X-37B program manager for the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, explained the third X-37 flight will not only help the Air Force better evaluate and understand the vehicle's performance characteristics, but this first re-flight is an important step in the program.

ENGADGET: USAF relaunches its first X-37B on a slightly less mysterious spaceflight

"We considered over 30 designs and believe that the QSST is the only design that meets all the desired requirements including range, take-off and landing field length, take-off noise, emissions and sufficiently low sonic boom characteristics to enable supersonic flight over land, " he told CNN.

CNN: Bang goes the sonic boom

After various tests on the virtual prototype (such as making sure vital systems are insulated from lightning strikes), its ceiling, rate of climb and other handling characteristics are fed into a flight simulator.

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