The Space Force's top-secret X-37B spaceplane has landed after spending well over a year orbiting the Earth.
The enigmatic space plane launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in December 2023. What exactly it did while circling the planet without a crew on board for the next 434 days, its seventh flight to date, remains mostly a mystery.
In a vaguely-worded statement, the Space Force revealed that "Mission 7 accomplished a range of test and experimentation objectives intended to demonstrate the X-37B’s robust maneuver capability while helping characterize the space domain through the testing of space domain awareness technology experiments."
Last month, the Space Force published a photo showing the side of the spacecraft with a distant Earth looming in the background, demonstrating its highly elliptical orbit. In October, the military branch announced X-37B would be performing a series of "aerobraking" maneuvers to slow itself down while clipping through the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
Apart from saving fuel, the Space Force said it also managed to use the technique to descend to a low-Earth orbit. Put simply, the space plane appears to have successfully "belly flopped" through the upper reaches of the atmosphere to slow itself down.
"The successful execution of the aerobraking maneuver underscores the US Space Force’s commitment to pushing the bounds of novel space operations in a safe and responsible manner," said chief of space operations Chance Saltzman in a statement.
X-37B program director Blaine Stewart called the conclusion of the plane's latest flight an "exciting new chapter in the X-37B program."
"Considered together, they mark a significant milestone in the ongoing development of the US Space Force’s dynamic mission capability," he added.
According to the military branch, the "space domain awareness technology experiments" the plane conducted during its most recent flight were meant to address the issue of an "increasingly congested and contested environment of space."
In other words, it's possible the plane was scanning the space around it for errant pieces of space junk and other objects to avoid a collision.
Apart from slowing itself down using the Earth's atmosphere, the X-37B has previously tested beaming solar power from space and thermal protection systems, as Space.com reported last month.
While 434 days is a considerable amount of time, the X-37B spent more than twice that during its sixth flight between May 2020 and November 2022.
More on the space plane: Space Force Releases Photo of Earth Taken by Experimental Space Plane
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