Space Force’s X-37B completes seventh flight, lasting 434 days
With landing on March 7, 2025 at Vandenberg in California, of one of the Space Force’s two X-37B reusable mini-shuttles, the military completed the seventh total flight, this one lasting over 434 days.
The mission achieved a number of important milestones. First, it was the first launched on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. Previously launches had used both ULA’s Atlas-5 as well as SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
Second, the spacecraft successfully demonstrated its ability to use aerobraking to adjust its orbit.
The Space Force also claimed other classified experiments on board “tested space domain awareness technology experiments that aim to improve the United States Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment.” That’s however all they told us.
Because the Space Force has stopped telling us which of the two X-37B’s is flying on each launch, it is not clear the Space Force even has a fleet of two any longer. It could be one has been retired.
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It seemed like yesterday they released a photo showing a distant Earth—and now they’re back on the ground?
There was quite a dust-up at Secret Projects Review over X-37’s handling characteristics:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/x-37b-orbital-test-vehicle-otv.5232/page-27#post-760394
“Byeman” (named after a spooky program) is Charlie at Disqus and Jim at NSF.
James Knauf is his full name most likely—he hated how I considered Delta II a crutch—and likely wrote this as something of a response:
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3564/1
At SPF, he claims to have worked on it-so perhaps he’s being a patriot in poor-mouthing it…still