US Air Force and Space Force's "world's only reusable spaceplane" keeps setting records.
The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, dubbed by its manufacturer Boeing as the sole reusable spaceplane in the world, achieved another endurance record on Thursday, as reported first by Fox26 News.
What's more astounding is that the spaceplane has been orbiting the Earth for 781 days!
(Photo : Boeing)
The Air Force's reusable, unmanned X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base at 5:48 a.m. on 16 June (PDT). OTV-2, which was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on March 5, 2011, carried out tests while in orbit for 469 days.
New Endurance Record
To celebrate the achievement, Boeing honored the spaceplane by announcing its new endurance record on Twitter and congratulated both the Space Force and Air Force on Thursday, July 8.
The X-37B also holds the previous record for the longest time in orbit, 780 days.
According to the Air Force, the X-37B is currently on its sixth mission, known as Orbital Test Vehicle-6 or OTV-6, launched on May 17, 2020.
The Air Force has rated the X-37B's previous five missions as "successful." Many details about those missions that were conducted are apparently classified, although some have been made available to the public.
According to Space.com, the Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module, or PRAM, from the Naval Research Laboratory has undergone testing in one mission. It is believed that PRAM is a tiny gadget designed to transform solar energy into microwaves that can be sent back to Earth.
Sophisticated Re-entry Spacecraft
The Air Force's website said that OTV is an "experimental test program" that was built to showcase technologies for a "reliable, reusable, and unmanned" space test development for the agency.
The X-37B's main goals are to conduct experiments that can be brought back to Earth and inspected here and to develop reusable spacecraft technology for America's future in space.
Air Force also stated that OTV is one of the most recent and technologically sophisticated re-entry spacecraft out there. The unmanned spacecraft is inspired by NASA's X-37 design and it is built for vertical launch to low Earth orbit levels where it can conduct extended space technology research and testing.
The OTV re-enters the atmosphere on its own, descends, and lands flat on a runway after receiving instructions from the ground. The X-37B is the first spacecraft since NASA's Shuttle Orbiter to have the capability of delivering experiments to our planet for additional review and analysis.
The program is testing navigation, avionics, control, advanced guidance, high-temperature structures, advanced propulsion systems, autonomous orbital flight, re-entry, and so much more!
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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
