The U.S. military’s X-37B space plane has launched into its latest clandestine mission finally.
The robotic X-37B lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida Thursday night (Dec. 28) at 8:07 p.m. EST (0107 GMT on Dec. 29) after weeks of delays. SpaceX first two attempts to launch the secretive X-37-B military space plane earlier this month were delayed by bad weather and a ground equipment issue.
Thursday’s launch marked the seventh liftoff for the X-37B up to now but its first ride on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, the second-most powerful rocket currently in operation (after NASA’s Space Launch System). It was SpaceX’s ninety fifth launch of 2023, with the following launch just hours away when Falcon 9 rocket will launch 23 Starlink satellites from the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:01 p.m. EST (0401 GMT).
SpaceX shut down its livestream of the Falcon Heavy launch before the X-37B space plan was deployed in its final orbit on the request of the U.S. Space Force.
The brand new X-37B mission, often called OTV-7 (“Orbital Test Vehicle-7”) in addition to USSF-52, will apparently benefit from the rocket’s muscle; the flight’s most important objectives “include operating the reusable space plane in latest orbital regimes,” Space Force officials wrote in a mission preview last month.
Related: The US Space Force’s secretive X-37B space plane: 10 surprising facts
The Falcon Heavy consists of three modified, strapped-together first stages of SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. The central booster on this lineup carries a second stage, which is topped by the payload.
The Heavy’s three first stages are reusable, as we saw during today’s liftoff: The 2 outer boosters got here back for secure touchdowns at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which is round the corner to KSC, about 8.5 minutes after liftoff. It was the fifth launch and landing for the 2 boosters, whose resume also includes the launch of NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe, which took flight this past October.
“We now have successfully landed each Falcon Heavy side boosters at Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2,” said Jessie Anderson, SpaceX’s mechanical production and engineering manager, in a live webcast. “With these two side boosters, this marks the 257th and 258th overall successful landings of an orbital class rocket.”
The Heavy’s central booster flew for the primary and only time today; it ditched intentionally into the Atlantic Ocean after launch, having expended an excessive amount of of its fuel to return to Earth for recovery and reuse.
The X-37B looks like NASA’s retired space shuttle but is far smaller. The uncrewed vehicle is just 29 feet (8.8 meters) long, with a wingspan of 15 feet (4.6 m). Each shuttle orbiter, against this, was 122 feet (37 m) long and had a wingspan of greater than 78 feet (24 m).
The Space Force is believed to own two X-37B vehicles, each of them built by Boeing. The space planes are used primarily as orbital testbeds, allowing the military to see how instruments perform and behave within the space environment. We do not know much about this gear; details about X-37B missions, from their flight plans to their most important payloads, are likely to be classified.
For instance, the Space Force lays out OTV-7’s objectives only in broad strokes. Along with the “latest orbital regimes” goal, the flight “will expand america Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment by experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies,” Space Force officials wrote within the mission description. “These tests are integral in ensuring secure, stable and secure operations in space for all users of the domain.”
Not every thing the space plane hauls to orbit is hush-hush, nevertheless; it routinely takes some civilian gear up as well. For instance, a NASA experiment called Seeds-2 is hitching a ride on OTV-7.
Seeds-2 “will expose plant seeds to the tough radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight,” Space Force officials wrote. The project “will construct upon the successes of prior experiments, paving the way in which for future crewed space missions,” they added.
It’s unclear how long OTV-7 will last, nevertheless it’s secure to assume the space plane might be up there for some time. The previous six X-37B missions lasted greater than seven months apiece, and every one bested its predecessors’ duration:
- OTV-1: 224 days (launched on April 22, 2010, landed on Dec. 3, 2010)
- OTV-2: 468 days (launched on March 5, 2011, landed on June 16, 2012)
- OTV-3: 674 days (launched on Dec. 11, 2012, landed on Oct. 17, 2014)
- OTV-4: 718 days (launched on May 20, 2015, landed on May 7, 2015)
- OTV-5: 780 days (launched on Sept. 7, 2017, landed on Oct. 27, 2019)
- OTV-6: 908 days (launched on May 17, 2020, landed on Nov. 12, 2022)
The previous six missions all flew in low Earth orbit, just a couple of hundred miles above our planet. The Falcon Heavy could take the X-37B much higher, potentially all of the solution to geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers) up. Nevertheless it’s unclear if that is the plan for OTV-7.
The primary five X-37B flights lifted off atop United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets. SpaceX has provided launch services for essentially the most recent two: OTV-6 flew on a Falcon 9 and OTV-7 on a Heavy.
The Falcon Heavy debuted in February 2018 with a highly anticipated test flight that sent SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk’s red Tesla Roadster into orbit across the sun. The large rocket now has nine flights under its belt, including five in 2023.