If you want to see how the U.S. military is changing space activities, start with the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. This unmanned, reusable craft – a small, special type of space shuttle for the military – has turned into one of the most top-end and hidden tools in the U.S. Space Force’s kit, and no one saw it coming.
Its seventh flight, OTV-7, stood out in an already impressive record. With this combination, the spaceplane achieved a highly elliptical orbit—one that takes it far out over Earth at its apogee—opening up new possibilities for flight testing novel maneuvers and technologies.
Of all the moves, one stood out: aerobraking. It’s like using the atmosphere as a tool. By going into the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere, the X-37B could slow down and change its orbit without using fuel. This method, more typically practiced on missions to Mars, had never been tried before by the X-37B.
The military benefit? It enables the spaceplane to relocate unobtrusively, making it more difficult for competitors to trace and anticipate. As former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson once described, this type of maneuvering can compel competitors to “look all over again” for the aircraft—just as a submarine hides in a thermal layer to escape detection.
But OTV-7 was more than a demonstration of orbital flexibility. It also contained an array of experiments designed to improve space domain awareness—the capability to observe and comprehend activity in orbit about the Earth.
The mission evaluated new sensors and tracking systems to assist in the identification of satellites, debris, and other potential threats in a growing, congested space environment.
NASA contributed to the project with its Seeds-2 experiment, examining how seeds withstand long-term exposure to the radiation in space. The information from this type of research will be invaluable for long-duration missions of the future, where cultivating food in space may be required.
After 434 days, over 14 months, in space, the X-37B landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. This not only demonstrated the vehicle’s durability for long missions but also underscored its versatility in that it may launch and land from several different sites, adding operational reliability.
The bigger lesson from OTV-7 is apparent: the X-37B has become a test bed for the next generation of space technology, ranging from self-navigating to advanced communication.
As Boeing vice president of space mission systems, Michelle Parker said, the advancements proven on the X-37B will cascade beyond the military into the wider efforts for sustainable space missions.
With its recent mission, the X-37B demonstrated that the U.S. is not just responding to the changing issues of space—it’s leading the charge.