The Space Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is set to launch on its next, largely classified mission Aug. 21, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center.
During its eighth mission, the Boeing-developed X-37B will carry several experiments designed to advance the DoD’s in-space capabilities and resilience, including:
- Tech to demonstrate high-bandwidth laser communications capabilities;
- A quantum inertial sensor, built to maintain navigational awareness in space when GPS is denied due to hostile activity, or when it’s unavailable due to the distance from Earth.
Billion-dollar baby: Despite widespread cuts to space science proposed by the Trump Administration, the X-37B spaceplane program stands to receive $1B in funding under President Donald Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.
The X-37B has been able to command this funding allotment, in part, because of how the Space Force has framed its development of in-space capabilities as a direct counter to similar advancements by American adversaries.
“This mission is about more than innovation. It’s about making our Joint Force more connected, more resilient, and ready to operate in the face of any challenge. That’s how America’s Space Force secures our nation’s interests in, from, and to space,” Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations, posted on X yesterday.
Since it first launched in 2010, the spaceplane has spent over 4,000 days in space, according to Boeing.
While X-37B’s missions have been largely secretive, the miniature, uncrewed space shuttle has pushed forward a number of technologies designed to increase the DoD’s defensive posture in orbit.
The spaceplane has completed studies of space radiation, demonstrated space domain awareness technologies, performed aerobraking maneuvers to lower its orbit without expending fuel, and deployed at least two service modules.
Not alone: During the past few years, Russia and China have ramped up their dynamic capabilities in orbit. Russia is reportedly developing a nuclear counterspace weapon. China potentially demonstrated on-orbit refueling capabilities this summer, and has also deployed satellite-enabled kill webs in orbit.
On the spaceplane front, China has flown its own spaceplane—called Shenlong—at least three times, during which the craft deployed multiple unknown objects, and conducted its own orbital maneuvers.
