SPACE reported that a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket “is poised to launch the X-37B space plane for the US Space Force on Monday evening (Dec. 11) after a one-day delay due to weather, and you can likely watch the action live.” Liftoff of the Falcon Heavy “is scheduled to occur from Launch Complex-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, during a 10-minute window that opens at 8:14 p.m. EST (0114 GMT Dec. 12).” The upcoming launch “will be the seventh launch to date for the reusable X-37B space plane its first-ever ride on a Falcon Heavy, which could have consequences for its coming orbital mission.” Five of the six X-37B launches “to date have employed United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets, with one other using a SpaceX Falcon 9.”
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Tag: Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV)
US Spaceplane to Return to Orbit on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy
FlightGlobal reports that the secretive “spaceplane” operated by the US Space Force (USSF) “will return to orbit for its seventh long-endurance mission, this time aboard the world’s largest commercial rocket.” The USSF “announced the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) will launch on 7 December from Cape Canaveral, Florida for the ultra-long endurance spacecraft’s seventh mission.” The announcement “comes almost exactly one year after the X-37B landed from its sixth flight mission in November 2022.” That flight, which “launched in May 2020, lasted 908 days and carried a solar energy experiment for the US Navy and a satellite for the US Air Force Academy.” The goal “of the latest orbital flight, dubbed X-37B Mission 7 or OTV-7, is to experiment with new space technologies aimed at furthering the ‘safe, stable, and secure operations in space for all users,’ the USSF says.”
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