The U.S. military’s mini space shuttle has returned to Earth after circling the world on another secretive mission that lasted 434 days.
The space plane blasted into orbit from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in December 2023, launched by SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. The X-37B vehicle carried no people, just classified military experiments.
Space Force officials would not say what’s on board other than a Nasa experiment to gauge the effects of radiation on materials.
Its predawn touchdown on Friday at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California was not announced until hours after the fact. Photos showed the white-and-black space plane parked on the runway in darkness.
It marked the seventh flight of an X-37B text vehicle, which has logged more than 10 years in orbit since its debut in 2010.
Space Force officials said the mission successfully demonstrated the ability to change orbits by using atmospheric drag to slow down, saving fuel.
“Mission 7’s operation in a new orbital regime, its novel aerobraking maneuver, and its testing of space domain awareness experiments have written an exciting new chapter in the X-37B program,” program director Lt. Col. Blaine Stewart said in a statement.
“Considered together, they mark a significant milestone in the ongoing development of the U.S. Space Force’s dynamic mission capability.”
First launched in 2010, the Boeing-made, reusable space planes have spent as long as 908 days in space at a time.
The X-37B resembles NASA’s retired space shuttles but they’re just one-fourth the size at 29 feet (9 meters) long with a wingspan of almost 15 feet (4.5 meters).
They take off vertically like rockets but land horizontally like planes, and are designed to orbit between 150 miles and 500 miles (240 kilometers and 800 kilometers) high. The X-37B also has an autonomous landing system requiring no astronauts.
