The X-37B space plane has set a new record for its class, spending 716 continuous days in orbit.

Nobody outside the Pentagon knows all the things the X-37B does.

The X-37B is an unmanned spacecraft designed to take payloads into space and return them...up to two years later.

The U.S. Air Force’s secretive space plane has once again broken its own record, spending a 716 days in orbit and counting. The fifth mission of the X-37B space plane is the longest yet, overtaking the previous mission’s number of days in orbit. OTV-5 is conducting classified missions in low-Earth orbit, likely involving testing new technologies for future spacecraft.

OTV-5 blasted off from Cape Canaveral atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on July 9th, 2017. According to Space.com the spacecraft is testing the “Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader experiment (ASETS-II), which is measuring the performance of electronics and oscillating heat pipes in the space environment.”

Launch of OTV-3 in 2012 from the Kennedy Space Center. U.S. DoD Getty Images

ASETS-II might not be the only mission the spacecraft is undertaking. The 29-foot-long spacecraft has a seven-by-four foot payload bay, about the size of a pickup truck bed. As important as ASETS-II sounds, it’s unclear it warrants nearly two continuous years in space all by itself. The Secure World Foundation, a space policy nonprofit, believes the X-37B is used as an “on-orbit sensor platform and technology test bed.” The X-37B could be testing tech for a next generation of spy satellites, returning them back to Earth for tweaking if necessary, or act as a spy satellite itself.

The U.S. Air Force owns two X-37B space planes. Built by Boeing, the X-37B is an unmanned spacecraft that is boosted into orbit atop a rocket and glides back to Earth like the Space Shuttle. Each of the spaceplane’s five missions have been lengthier than the first, starting with 224 days up to the current 716 days.

When the OTV-5 returns from space it will almost certainly land in California or Florida, where previous missions have returned. The spacecraft typically glides to a landing at Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California or the Kennedy Space Center.

In July, an amateur space photographer in the Netherlands snapped the first photos of the X-37B as OTV-5 orbited the Earth. Also that month former Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson revealed the X-37B can change its orbit, foiling adversaries trying to track the spacecraft.



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