SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
US military space drone returns to Earth after 908 days in orbit
Washington, Nov 12 (AFP) Nov 12, 2022
A US military space drone landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday after nearly two and a half years in orbit, Boeing said.

The unmanned X-37B shuttle, whose first flight took place in 2010, has now spent a total of more than 10 years in space and flown more than 1.3 billion miles during six missions, Boeing said in a statement.

"This mission highlights the Space Force's focus on collaboration in space exploration and expanding low-cost access to space for our partners, within and outside of the Department of the Air Force," said General Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations.

Launched in secrecy, the X-37B was designed for the Air Force by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

It is 30 feet (nine meters) long, has a 15-foot wingspan and is powered by solar panels.

Before the shuttle's last launch, in May 2020, the Pentagon evoked a series of scientific experiments it would undertake.

The mission was to test how certain materials react in space, to evaluate how ambient radiation in space affects a series of seeds, and to transform solar radiation into radio-electric energy, the army said.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
China Focus: Chinese scientist details first planned Mars sample-return mission Tianwen 3
NASA says it will lose about 20 percent of its workforce
Building blocks of life found in distant star system suggest origins in interstellar space

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Trump administration expected to say greenhouse gases aren't harmful
MicroCarb satellite launches to map global carbon dioxide emissions from space
Rollable solar array by GalaxySpace redefines satellite compactness and power efficiency

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Airbus CO3D satellites begin mission to generate high precision global 3D map
BlackSky to supply satellite imagery and analytics for Latin American security operations
GovSat selects Thales Alenia Space to build secure satellite for military communications

24/7 News Coverage
First wildfire images reveal FireSat's unmatched detection capabilities
MetOp Second Generation satellite fully fuelled ahead of August launch
MicroCarb satellite launch marks new era in urban carbon tracking



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.