The US Military's Secretive X-37B Space Plane: 6 Surprising Facts

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By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | May 7, 2017 12:50pm ET

• Photo Credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

  Introduction

  The U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane has been zipping around Earth since May 2015 while it performs a number of hush-hush activities. The current mission is the fourth for the robotic X-37B, which is also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). The other three OTV flights launched in April 2010, March 2011 and December 2012. Here are a few surprising facts about the military space plane.

• It's tiny

• It's tiny

  The X-37B looks a lot like NASA's iconic space shuttle, but the two types of vehicles don't resemble each other in size. The X-37B is just 29 feet (8.8 meters) long, with a wingspan of 15 feet (4.6 m). The now-retired space shuttle orbiters, by contrast, were 122 feet (37 m) long, and measured more than 78 feet (24 m) from wingtip to wingtip. Two X-37Bs could fit inside the shuttle's cavernous payload bay. Indeed, the X-37B's designers originally envisioned the shuttle carrying the smaller space plane to orbit but ultimately decided that launching the X-37B atop a rocket would be more economical. The X-37B currently rides to orbit aboard United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket. Like the space shuttle, the X-37B lands on a runway, plane-style, but does everything autonomously (in contrast to the piloted shuttle, which usually carried a crew of seven astronauts).

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• Its missions are classified

  Photo Credit: United Launch Alliance/Boeing

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• Its missions are classified

  Although the Air Force has disclosed some of the payloads that have flown to orbit on the X-37B, most of the space plane's onboard gear is classified, as are the details of its orbital activities. This secrecy has led to some speculation that the vehicle is some sort of space weapon, perhaps one designed to take out or capture satellites. However, the Air Force has always denied this notion, insisting that the X-37B is just testing out technologies for future spacecraft, and carrying various experiments up to space and back. Some of these technologies being tested may be sensors and other equipment for future spy satellites, outside experts have said.

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• It has NASA roots

• It has NASA roots

  The X-37 program started in 1999 with NASA, which initially planned to develop two separate vehicles: an Approach and Landing Test Vehicle (ALTV), and an Orbital Vehicle (OV). But NASA transferred X-37 development to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2004, at which point it became a classified program. In 2006, the Air Force announced it would develop its own X-37 vehicle, which it dubbed the X-37B, or OTV. The design of the space plane was based heavily on the original OV, which was never built. (DARPA did construct and test the ALTV, however.) Boeing has been the primary contractor for the X-37B program dating back to its inception in 1999. To date, the company has apparently built two X-37B space planes for the Air Force. (Two different vehicles have flown the program's four space missions.)

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• The missions are incredibly long

  Photo Credit: United Launch Alliance

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Michael was a science writer for the Idaho National Laboratory and has been an intern at Wired.com, The Salinas Californian newspaper, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He has also worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Mike on Google+.