A secret Space Force plane lands after record-breaking flight - NPR

The X-37B orbital trial conveyance concluded its sixth palmy ngo aboriginal Saturday. Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks/United States Space Force hide caption

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Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks/United States Space Force

The X-37B orbital trial conveyance concluded its sixth palmy ngo aboriginal Saturday.

Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks/United States Space Force

Loud booms heard successful Florida marked the instrumentality of the X-37B, the U.S. Space Force's uncrewed orbital trial vehicle, aft the secretive abstraction plane's sixth and longest ngo yet.

After 908 days successful orbit, the Boeing conveyance touched down astatine NASA's Kennedy Space Center successful Florida aboriginal Saturday morning.

NASA conducted a fig of experiments during the trip, the Space Force said in a statement.

It was besides the archetypal X-37B ngo to see a work module, which the Space Force described arsenic "a ringing attached to the rear of the conveyance expanding the fig of experiments that tin beryllium hosted during a mission."

Beyond that, not overmuch is known astir the X-37B's missions. Officials person released scant accusation astir a fewer experiments that took spot aboard the latest flight.

One of the experiments, successful concern with the Naval Research Laboratory, progressive converting star powerfulness into microwave energy. Another aimed to trial the durability of definite materials exposed to abstraction conditions. A 3rd experimentation was designed to survey the semipermanent effects of abstraction radiation connected seeds, successful bid to research harvest accumulation and "the constitution of permanently inhabited bases successful space."

"The X-37B continues to propulsion the boundaries of experimentation, enabled by an elite authorities and manufacture squad down the scenes," said Lt. Col. Joseph Fritschen, the X-37B programme manager for the Air Force Department's Rapid Capabilities Office. "The quality to behaviour on-orbit experiments and bring them location safely for in-depth investigation connected the crushed has proven invaluable for the Department of the Air Force and technological community."