After A Mysterious 434-Day Mission, The Top-Secret X-37B Space Plane Returned To Earth
After a mysterious 434-day mission in orbit, the United States government’s top-secret X-37B space plane has finally returned to Earth, according to the U.S. Space Force.
The details of the mission are classified, but the Space Force is praising the flight as a groundbreaking one in the X-37B program.
“Mission 7 broke new ground by showcasing the X-37B’s ability to flexibly accomplish its test and experimentation objectives across orbital regimes,” said Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman.
The Space Force also noted the spacecraft’s success in completing several aerobraking maneuvers, which is a way of using the atmosphere to lower the plane’s orbit and expending as little fuel as possible. Usually, built-in thrusters must be used to change the altitude of a spacecraft.
But aerobraking changes the angle of the space plane’s nose relative to its orbital direction, causing more of the underside to be exposed to the atmosphere.
In turn, this drags the plane, slowing it down gradually and lowering its altitude after multiple laps around a planet.
On December 29, 2023, the X-37B launched on Mission 7 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It rode a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket into a highly elliptical orbit around Earth, or about 20,000 miles above the planet’s surface, for 434 days. There was no crew on the vehicle.
During the mission, the space plane carried out experiments that had to do with space radiation and “space domain awareness technology,” which detects various objects in orbit. The experiments aimed to improve the Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment.
Representatives of the Space Force did not elaborate any further about the experiments. The plane returned to Vandenberg on March 7, 2025, in the darkness of night.
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The main goal of the mission was to improve reusable spacecraft technology. The craft would launch vertically on a rocket, spend months or years in orbit, and then land again like a normal airplane.
The X-37B space plane was built by Boeing and resembles a miniature space shuttle. It is 29 feet long and has a wingspan of 15 feet.
It features delta wings and heat shield tiles powered by a solar array. It is designed to test advanced technologies, including thermal protection, propulsion systems, and autonomous reentry capabilities.
In 1999, it started out as a NASA project before being handed over to the U.S. military’s Department of Defense in 2004.
Since then, the spacecraft has managed to complete seven missions, with each flight taking more time in orbit than the last.
The longest stretch of time it has spent in space lasted 909 days, between May 2020 and November 2022. Its shortest flight lasted 224 days in 2010. Overall, it has spent a total of 4,000 days in space across all missions.
You can view a photo of the plane here.
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