SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launches Secret US Air Force Spaceplane X-37B Into Orbit

A fiery light returned to the skies over Cape Canaveral, Florida, shortly after sunset on Dec. 28 as a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket blazed another trail into the heavens. Its passenger was the United States Air Force’s (USAF) secret unmanned spaceplane known as the X-37B. This launch was the ninth flight of the three-core launch [...]

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched the United States Air Force's secret unmanned spaceplane, known as the X-37B, into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Its passenger, officially dubbed USSF-52, will venture into different types of orbit around the Earth and serve as a testing ground for NASA's study of the effects of long-duration exposure to space on organic materials. The mission will also include experiments with technology for 'space domain awareness,' which the USSF defines as the ability to 'rapidly detect, warn, characterize, attribute, and predict threats to national, allied, and commercial space systems.'

“This seventh flight of the X-37B continues to demonstrate the innovative spirit of the United States Space Force,” Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said in a press release.

Testing of such threat-detection technologies comes as tensions between the United States and a space-faring communist China remain high. Designed by Boeing and operated by the United States Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the X-37B—also known as OTV-7—can fly as high as 500 miles above the Earth's surface and carry out missions lasting 270 days. The United States Space Force did not respond to The Epoch Times request for comment.