Science

Top secret space plane returns to Earth after two-year mission

The U.S. military’s top-secret version of the space shuttle has completed a nearly two-year-long classified mission. The space plane, known as the X-37B, landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Southern California coast on Friday after circling the Earth for 674 days. What the shuttle was doing during that time remains a mystery.

I’m extremely proud of our team for coming together to execute this third safe and successful landing. Col Keith Balts, commander of the 30th Space Wing

The Air Force says the space planes, also known as Orbital Test Vehicles, “perform risk reduction, experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies”. Upon landing of the latest mission, the Air Force simply said the aircraft had been conducting “on-orbit experiments”. It was the second flight for this X-37B. The same plane circled the planet for more than seven months in 2010. A second X-37B spacecraft blasted off in March 2011 and spent more than a year in orbit.