Secret X-37B military space plane lands at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California 7 March, completing his seventh mission after over 434 days in orbit, announced the US Space Force.
Autonomous spacecraft called Orbital Test Vehicle-7 (OTV-7), which started 28 December 2023 year, made several cutting-edge innovations, including the first flight aboard the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and operations in highly elliptical Earth orbit (HEO).
"Mission 7 opened a new way, having demonstrated the ability of the X-37B to flexibly perform the tasks of tests and experiments in various orbital modes", Chief of Space Operations General Chance Salzman said in a statement after the landing. The space force considers the mission particularly important because of the demonstration of aerobraking maneuvers, a technique, which uses atmospheric drag during multiple orbital passes to alter the spacecraft's trajectory, saving fuel. This ability provides tactical advantages, which are consistent with the Space Force's growing focus on space awareness and orbital maneuverability.
The aerobrake capability essentially gives the X-37B a stealthy orbit change mode with no visible motion traces, which can be detected by adversaries. The mission also included NASA experiments and conducted space awareness tests, designed to collect orbital maneuvering data. Expected, that these tests will contribute to the development of next-generation space capabilities and improve the Space Force's understanding of that, how different sensors and tracking systems work when monitoring spacecraft in different orbital modes.
X-37B program, jointly operated by the United States Air Force Rapid Capability Office and the United States Space Force. The ship's developer is the Boeing company, which provides technical support to the mission. Its purpose was as a secret military test, and civilian space experiments. Despite that, that many details of the mission remain confidential, The Space Force is gradually releasing more information about the program's role in developing new concepts for space operations.