The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7 successfully landed at the Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The spaceship began its return to Earth after successfully completing its “test and experimentation objectives”.
The X-37B completed a never-before-seen aerobraking manoeuvre to change its orbit.
Aerobraking involves making several passes into the Earth’s atmosphere which causes drag to rapidly change the craft’s orbit.
In doing so, the spaceship expends minimal fuel, making it temporarily invisible to other nations who could be tracking it.
The U.S. Space Force shared months ago a photo taken by the spacecraft X-37B. It’s the first operational image shared while the space plane is in orbit. The image shows part of the space plane, the blue marble of Earth and the darkness of space.
“An X-37B onboard camera, used to ensure the health and safety of the vehicle, captures an image of Earth while conducting experiments in HEO in 2024,” the U.S. Space Force wrote on X. “The X-37B executed a series of first-of-kind maneuvers, called aerobraking, to safely change its orbit using minimal fuel.”
The space plane is an orbital test platform for different experimentation missions, some of which are classified. Its seventh mission, known as OTV-7, was launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in 2023 and included both unclassified and classified experiments.
