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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launched a secretive military spaceplane to orbit last night after weeks of delays, though scant details about the mission have been released to the public. The Falcon Heavy lifted off on the clandestine mission at 8:07 PM Eastern from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The U.S. Space Force’s X-37B space plane, a reusable vehicle that acts as a classified testbed for experiments in space, was the sole payload on the massive rocket. As with the other six uncrewed X-37B missions, little is known about this mission. The target orbit, mission duration and many of the payloads are...

Psyche Spacecraft at the Asteroid Psyche (Illustration) This illustration depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU Now that fueling and testing are complete, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is ready to meet its ride – a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The launch is now targeting 10:34 a.m. EDT on Thursday, October 5 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after optimizing the trajectory for the mission to study a metal-rich asteroid. Craft Integration Technicians connected Psyche to the payload attach fitting at Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Florida. This hardware allows Psyche to connect to the top of...

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches the Psyche mission. The orbiter mission will explore the origin of planetary cores by studying the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche. 16 Psyche is the heaviest known M-type asteroid. The mass of the payload is 2,600 kg. Instantaneous Launch Window: October 13th at 10:19AM EDT (14:19 UTC)

SpaceX Lands All 3 Falcon Heavy Boosters for the First Time

The next opportunity will come on Wednesday (Dec. 13). We'll have to wait until Wednesday (Dec. 13) to see SpaceX's powerful Falcon Heavy rocket take to the skies again. The brawny Falcon Heavy had been scheduled to launch the U.S. Space Force's robotic X-37B space plane from Florida on Monday night (Dec. 11), a liftoff known as USSF-52. But about 30 minutes before the planned 8:24 p.m. EST (0124 GMT) liftoff time, SpaceX announced a scrub. "Standing down from tonight's Falcon Heavy launch due to a ground side issue; vehicle and payload remain healthy. Team is resetting for the next...

SpaceX is targeting Thursday, December 28 at 8:07 p.m. ET for Falcon Heavy’s launch of the USSF-52 mission to orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A backup launch opportunity is available at 8:06 p.m. ET on Friday, December 29. A live webcast of this mission will begin on X @SpaceX about fifteen minutes prior to liftoff. This will be the fifth launch and landing of these Falcon Heavy side boosters, which previously supported USSF-44, USSF-67, Hughes JUPTER 3, and NASA’s Psyche mission. Following booster separation, Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters will land on...

SpaceX's fifth Falcon Heavy of the year is set to liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center carrying the US Space Force X-37B spaceplane. Falcon Heavy - USSF-52 (OTV-7) Window Opens: December 28th at 8:07PM EST (01:07 UTC on the 29th) Window Closes: December 28th at 8:17PM EST (01:17 UTC on the 29th) Current T0: December 28th at 8:07PM EST (01:00 UTC on the 29th)

It’s an itty-bitty spaceplane, not quite 30 feet long and under 10 feet tall, with a pair of stubby wings and a rounded, bulldog-like nose. But despite its diminutive size — it looks like a miniature version of the space shuttle — the Pentagon’s most mysterious spacecraft, known as the X-37B, has built an outsize reputation. Is it a secretive Pentagon weapon? Is it stealthy? Does it sneak up to satellites? What exactly does it do in space? And why is it up there for so long? The Pentagon won’t say. And the veil of secrecy over the X-37B continues...

ORLANDO, Fla. - Florida residents lit up social media on Saturday after hearing the sound of sonic booms and not knowing what caused them. Turns out, Boeing's X-37B – an autonomous spaceplane that spent over 900 days in space on a U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force mission – had secretly returned to Earth.

Last month, the Boeing-designed X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle surpassed 800 days in space, eclipsing its previous endurance record. This feat was marked by the U.S. Space Force’s Space Delta 9, which operates the 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. Designed as part of a pilot test program aimed at showcasing technologies for reusable unmanned space tests, the X-37B remains one of the most unique aircrafts in the U.S. arsenal. The U.S. Air Force has previously flown five X-37B missions, OTV-1 through OTV-5. The platform most recently launched to Earth orbit in May 2020 on its sixth mission for...

The newly-established Space Force blasted a secretive space plane into orbit from Florida Sunday for a mystery military mission. The launch out of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station marked the sixth flight for the solar-powered X-37B craft — which is flown by remote control without a crew. Riding atop an Atlas V rocket, the craft left from Space Launch Complex 41 at 9:14 a.m., following a one-day delay due to bad weather. Officials won’t say why or how long it will remain in orbit, but the last mission lasted a record-breaking two years in space. Jim Chilton, who is senior...

According to a Space Force press release, which went out on May 6, another payload aboard the X-37B will be an experimental system designed by the Naval Research Laboratory that is capable of capturing solar power and beaming that energy back to Earth in the form of microwaves. Naval Research Laboratory’s head of beamed power has explicitly stated in the past that this system has enormous implications when it comes to long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In addition, it could allow satellites to provide reliable power anywhere on the planet or even to spacecraft or other satellites in orbit. In...

The aerospace giant had named its hypersonic concept vehicle Phantom Express. That moniker is now oddly appropriate, since the spacecraft will never take physical form. Experimental Spaceplane, previously known as XS-1, aimed to nurture the development of a reusable vehicle that could help loft satellites cheaply and rapidly. Indeed, DARPA wanted the craft to be capable of launching 3,000-lb. (1,360 kilograms) satellites into orbit 10 times in 10 days, at a cost envisioned to drop eventually to around $5 million per mission. DARPA initiated Experimental Spaceplane in 2013. In 2017, the agency selected Boeing for the second and third phases...

The Air Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Mission 5 successfully landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility Oct. 27, 2019 at 3:51 a.m. The spaceplane conducted on-orbit experiments for 780 days during its mission, recently breaking its own record by being in orbit for more than two years. As of today, the total number of days spent on-orbit for the entire test vehicle program is 2,865 days. “The X-37B continues to demonstrate the importance of a reusable spaceplane,” said Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett. “Each successive mission advances our nation’s space capabilities.” This is the Air...

Former Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson revealed to an audience last week that the X-37B spaceplane can pull off maneuvers in space that drives potential adversaries “nuts.” Although maddeningly unspecific, experts believe she was referring to the X-37B’s ability to change its orbit, throwing off both amateur and professional satellite watchers and making the spacecraft unpredictable. According to Military.com, Wilson was speaking at the Apsen Security Forum when she remarked that the X-37B "can do an orbit that looks like an egg and, when it's close to the Earth, it's close enough to the atmosphere to turn where...

Think of the X-37B as the Space Shuttle’s smaller, younger brother and you wouldn’t be wrong. With its bullet-like shape, stubby wings, and two tone black and white appearance, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle looks like a smaller, cuter version of the manned orbiter that served NASA for decades. That’s where the comparison ends though: property of the U.S. Air Force, the secretive, unmanned X-37B is built to spend months in orbit, carrying out classified missions on behalf of America’s military space program.

The Air Force's top-secret X-37B Space Plane that appears to be the prototype for the world’s first stealth outer spacefighter just set a new record of 700-days in orbit. The X-37 is called the “mini-shuttle” because it is about 29 feet long, has a 15-foot wingspan, weighs just 11,000 pounds and there have been five Earth orbit missions since 1999 at altitudes between 200 and 250 miles. The current two reusable X-37B’s look like scale-models military “spacefighter,” but are officially designated as robotic “temporary satellites” to avoid violating the Outer Space Treaty that forbids weapons platforms at altitudes over 62...

Astrophotographer Ralf Vandebergh captured an image of the US Air Force's X-37B space plane in orbit. The reusable, uncrewed space vehicle, designated OTV-5, is on a secret testing mission since its launch in September 2017. From Vandebergh's post at Spaceweather.com: Images were taken through a 10 inch F/4,8 aperture Newtonian telescope with an Astrolumina ALccd 5L-11 mono CMOS camera. Tracking was fully manually through a 6x30 finderscope.

The reusable robotic vehicle, which looks like a miniature version of NASA's space shuttle orbiters, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sept. 7, 2017. It's unclear what exactly the spacecraft is doing up there. X-37B missions are classified, and Air Force officials tend to speak of project goals in general terms, as this excerpt from the X-37B fact sheet shows: "The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth." Still, the Air...

The robotic drone is performing classified duties during the program’s fifth flight. The current mission — known as Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5) — was rocketed into Earth orbit on Sept. 7, 2017, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. [The X-37B X-37B missions are carried out under the auspices of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, and mission control for OTV flights is handled by the 3rd Space ... gathering information on objects high above Earth and carrying out other intelligence-gathering duties. And that may be a signal as...