Boeing X-37B, the mysterious aircraft has spent over 900 days in orbit, a record

And for the sixth time the secret aircraft of the US Air Force, the X37B built by Boeing, surpasses its record of permanence in orbit, breaking through the 900-day wall on this occasion. Compared to the previous record of 780 days completed in 2019, the recent OTV-6 mission reached 908 and the return to Earth took place last Friday 12 November. The landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida took place when it was 11.22 in the morning in Italy.

Like the previous occasions there are not many details and both Boeing, the manufacturing company, and the Air Force which is the contractor, are keeping a strict confidentiality on the objectives of the missions and of the aircraft itself, however some news have been shared constructive for the mysterious aircraft. The main one is certainly the introduction of an unprecedented service moduleas stated by Jim Chilton, senior VP of Space and Launch at Boeing.

“With the addition of the service module, this was the most we have ever carried into orbit on the X-37B and we are proud to have been able to prove this new and flexible capability for government and its industrial partners.

Very little unfortunately, but this small aircraft is attracting the curiosity of many aerospace technology enthusiasts considering the secret nature that surrounds it. At first glance could closely resemble the famous NASA Space Shuttlebut is actually much smaller in size. X-37B measures 8.8 meters in total, against the 37 of the Space Shuttle but there is another substantial difference between the two aircraft. Boeing X-37B comparable to a drone, since completely autonomous.

Beyond that, we only know what NASA and the Air Force shared on the rare occasions they did. It is described as a test platform for long-term payloads in a space environment, the problem is that these are classified loads and we don’t know exactly what has been tested, even if we have some more details for the last mission. Among the novelties of OTV-6 we know that it has been introduced an unprecedented voltaic radiofrequency modulei.e. designed for convert solar energy into microwaves, which can then be transmitted to Earth. In addition, there was also a US Air Force FalconSat-8 satellite on board, the use of which remains shrouded in mystery but which we know was placed in orbit in October 2021.

Finally, there were also some on board NASA Experimental Technologies, for example regarding the influence of radiation on plants and materials when exposure is continued for months and months. This is the sixth OTV mission completed since 2010, so let’s see the sequence of personal records broken by the aircraft, as reported by Space.com.

• OTV-1: launched 22 April 2010 and landed 3 December 2010 (duration 224 days).
• OTV-2: from March 5, 2011 to June 16, 2012 (468 days).
• OTV-3: from December 11, 2012 to October 17, 2014 (674 days).
• OTV-4: from May 20, 2015 to May 7, 2015 (718 days).
• OTV-5: from 7 September 2017 to 27 October 2019 (780 days).
• OTV-6: from 17 May 2020 to 12 November 2022 (908 days).

We cannot speak of records of permanence in orbit in a broad sense, since there are satellites that have largely knocked down such numbers by operating in orbit for over a decade, and even if we speak of probes, aircraft or space stations, we have examples such as the ISS, or the Voyager probes, which are decidedly unreachable if placed in this context.