US Military Space Drone Landing Back on Earth After 671 Days

The Air Force’s space drone, more officially known as the X-37B unmanned mini-shuttle, will be coming back to Earth this week after a mysterious 22 month mission in orbit.

This is the third space drone launched, and the longest mission for any of them since they started getting built on contract by United Launch Alliance, the joint Boeing and Lockheed Martin company that works on rockets and space-related craft for the U.S. government.

The U.S. Air Force has two other X-37B space planes in its fleet. These vehicles have been carrying out top secret missions since 2010. It’s still not clear what purpose those flights have but are certainly for gathering classified military information.

The space plane that will return to Earth is called the Orbital Test Vehicle 3 (OTV-3). It was launched December 11, 2012 and placed into orbit by an Atlas 5 rocket.

OTV-3 is the third X-37B spacecraft launched by the U.S. Air Force. The program’s first vehicle, OTV-1, launched in April 2010 stayed in orbit for 225 days.

The second X-37B spacecraft was launched in March 2011 and landed in June 2012 after 469 days in space.

OTV-3 is regarded as the best spacecraft in its series and has surpassed all endurance tests. All missions are supervised by the U.S. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

The mission control center is located at the 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.

Agencies/Canadajournal