Secretary of the Air Force Barrett: ‘The X-37B continues to demonstrate the importance of a reusable spaceplane.’
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force X-37B spaceplane successfully landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility Oct. 27 at 3:51 AM EST, the Air Force announced.
This was the fifth mission of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. It flew for 780 days during this mission, breaking its own record by being in orbit for more than two years. As of today, the total number of days spent on-orbit for the entire test vehicle program is 2,865 days, the Air Force said. The spaceplane originally was designed to fly for just 270 days.
“The X-37B continues to demonstrate the importance of a reusable spaceplane,” Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett said in a news release.
The mission, called OTV-5, was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Sept. 7, 2017.
The spaceplane program, managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, has been used for science experiments to test technologies in a long-duration space environment.
“With a successful landing today, the X-37B completed its longest flight to date and successfully completed all mission objectives,” said Randy Walden, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. “This mission successfully hosted Air Force Research Laboratory experiments, among others, as well as providing a ride for small satellites.”
One of the experiments on OTV-5 is the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s second Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader (ASETS-II). This experiment will measure the long term performance of an oscillating heat pipe on orbit. Oscillating heat pipes are capable of transporting more than 45 times more heat than copper and are one of many technologies that the Air Force is testing to help advance space vehicle designs, AFRL said.
The original X-37 program was led by NASA and ran from 1999 to 2004, when NASA transferred it to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA continued the development of an approach and landing test vehicle. The Air Force adapted NASA’s original design of the orbital test vehicle to make the X-37B. Boeing is the prime contractor.
The Oct. 27 landing marked the second time the X-37B touched down at the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility. Mission 4 landed at Kennedy Space Center May 7, 2017, after 718 days in orbit.
The Air Force plans to launch the sixth X-37B mission from Cape Canaveral in 2020.