After nearly two years in orbit, the U.S. Air Force’s Boeing-built miniature–and that means it’s still big–spacecraft landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base on Oct. 17.
The 29-foot-long, 11,000-pound, unmanned X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle just finished a 674-day test mission—which is top secret, by the way. Diana Ball, with the Boeing Network and Space Systems public affairs office, told the Sun that she couldn’t say anything beyond what was already in a press release from the company.
The spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Dec. 11, 2012. It’s the third and longest orbital test vehicle mission that’s been completed. The first mission took off in April 2010 and came back to Earth in December of that same year. Ken Torok, Boeing’s director of experimental systems, said in the press release that the company congratulates the Air Force on its third successful mission.
“With a program total of 1,367 days on orbit over three missions, these agile and powerful small space vehicles have completed more days on orbit than all 135 space shuttle missions combined, which total 1,334 days,” Torok said in the release. “The innovative X-37B combines the best of an aircraft and a spacecraft into an affordable, responsive unmanned vehicle.”
The program is managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, and the Air Force said in a press release that the “program performs risk reduction, experimentation, and concept of operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies.”
All three missions have launched from Florida and landed at Vandenberg. The Air Force is prepping to launch the fourth mission from Cape Canaveral in 2015. Ball said the Air Force hasn’t released plans on where that mission will land yet.
This article appears in Oct 23-30, 2014.