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Boeing X-37

X-37
The sixth X-37B mission with a Service module placed inside its payload fairing
Role Uncrewed spaceplane
National origin United States
Manufacturer Boeing
First flight 7 April 2006 (first drop test)
Introduction 22 April 2010 (first spaceflight)
Status
  • In service
  • 6 spaceflights completed
  • 7th spaceflight underway
Primary user
Number built
  • X-37A: 1
  • X-37B: 2
Developed from Boeing X-40

The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. It is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, in collaboration with United States Space Force,[1] for orbital spaceflight missions intended to demonstrate reusable space technologies. It is a 120-percent-scaled derivative of the earlier Boeing X-40. The X-37 began as a NASA project in 1999, before being transferred to the United States Department of Defense in 2004. Until 2019, the program was managed by Air Force Space Command.[2]

An X-37 first flew during a drop test in 2006; its first orbital mission was launched in April 2010 on an Atlas V rocket, and returned to Earth in December 2010. Subsequent flights gradually extended the mission duration, reaching 780 days in orbit for the fifth mission, the first to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket. The sixth mission launched on an Atlas V on 17 May 2020 and concluded on 12 November 2022, reaching a total of 908 days in orbit.[3] The seventh mission launched on 28 December 2023 on a Falcon Heavy rocket, entering a highly elliptical high Earth orbit.[4][5]

  1. ^ a b "Department of the Air Force scheduled to launch seventh X-37B mission". United States Space Force. 8 November 2023. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
  2. ^ Clark, Stephen (18 August 2020). "Pentagon plans to keep X-37B spaceplane under Air Force management". Spaceflight Now. Archived from the original on 30 March 2023.
  3. ^ "X-37B orbital test vehicle concludes sixth successful mission" (Press release). U.S. Space Force. 12 November 2022. Archived from the original on 27 October 2023. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
  4. ^ Clark, Stephen (9 November 2023). "In a surprise move, the military's spaceplane will launch on Falcon Heavy". Ars Technica.
  5. ^ McDowell, Jonathan [@planet4589] (9 February 2024). "Congrats to Tomi Simola for locating the secret X-37B spaceplane. OTV 7 is in a 323 x 38838 km x 59.1 deg orbit. Could be testing out a new HEO IR sensor for future early warning satellites - just a wild speculation on my part here" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

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