- Boeing’s X-37B previously set a record with 908 days in orbit
- Craft used as technology test bed, but details under wraps
SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy rocket lofted a secretive space plane for the US Space Force on Thursday evening from Florida, the first time the rocket was used to send the Boeing Co.-built experimental spacecraft to orbit.
The launch, which lifted off at 8:07 p.m. local time, marked the start of the seventh mission for the Space Force’s secretive spaceplane, the X-37B. Shaped like a mini-space shuttle, the X-37B is an uncrewed and reusable experimental test platform that the Defense Department deploys in orbit, sometimes for years at a time.
Prior to launch, which took place Thursday after several earlier delays, the X-37B’s most recent mission launched in May 2020, spending a record-setting 908 days in orbit. The vehicle’s mission came to an end in November 2022, with the X-37B returning from space and gliding to a runway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility.