The United States Space Force’s uncrewed, secretive space plane unexpectedly returned to Earth this week after more than a year in space. It was an unusually short mission, but one that tested new flight patterns for the spacecraft.
The X-37B space plane touched down at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California after 434 days in space. Space Force is in general quite secretive about the spacecraft and its missions, often only giving the briefest description of what the goal is or what experiments are onboard. This flight for the X-37B was unique for several reasons. This mission utilized a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to go a farther distance into pace and put itself in a “highly elliptical” orbit. In October, the spacecraft carried out new and innovative aerobreaking maneuvers, as a way to preserve its fuel. Using the drag of the Earth’s atmosphere, encountered during the closer arc of that elliptical orbit, it adjusted course and its speed without having to utilize onboard fuel. Given the uncrewed craft’s tendency for missions longer than a year, fuel conservation is an important aspect. Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, described the successful move as helping to push “the bounds of novel space operations in a safe and responsible manner.”
“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,” Lt. Col. Blaine Stewart, the X-37B program director, said in a Space Force release on the landing. “Considered together, they mark a significant milestone in the ongoing development of the U.S. Space Force’s dynamic mission capability.”
And in February, Space Force released a photo of Earth taken earlier in the mission from the X-37B, the first publicly released image from any of the flights in orbit. The craft, one of two that Space Force has, is relatively small, at only nine meters in length. It uses solar power once in orbit to help its longevity in mission.
The uncrewed space plane took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Dec. 28 2023. Although Space Force often announces the missions and launch dates in advance, once the X-37B makes it into orbit, the service is relatively silent on its updates. That includes when the mission will end. The Air Force, and later Space Force, began these Orbital Test Vehicle flights in 2010. The arc of the Air Force and later Space Force missions has trended towards duration, with each flight lasting longer than the last. OTV-7 broke that trend. At 434 days, it’s the second-shortest mission and far quicker than OTV-6, which landed Nov. 12, 2022 after 908 days in orbit.
Space Force has been relatively quiet on what the ultimate goal of these various test missions are — although official art hints at potential uses for these spacecraft — and when the next mission will be.
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