The United States Space Force (USSF) launched the USSF-52 mission at 8:07 pm on Dec. 28 from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., in what marked the seventh flight for the Boeing [BA]-built X-37B and its first launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the service said.
“The X-37B tests include operating in new orbital regimes, experimenting with space domain awareness technologies and investigating radiation effects to NASA materials,” Space Force said on Dec. 29.
William D. Bailey, the director of the Department of the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office, said in a Boeing-released statement that the federal government’s and Boeing’s X-37B work “to streamline processes and adapt evolving technologies will help our nation learn a tremendous amount about operating in and returning from a space environment.”
Space Force’s Space Systems Command had said that its goal was to launch the seventh X-37B mission on Dec. 10 (Defense Daily, Nov. 30, 2023).
Michelle Parker, Space Mission Systems vice president at Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security division, said in the company statement that “the technological advancements we’re driving on X-37B will benefit the broader space community, especially as we see increased interest in space sustainability.”
The unmanned X-37B spacecraft is to reenter Earth’s atmosphere and land as a space plane after completing the seventh mission.
While SpaceX provided the rocket for USSF-52, the United Launch Alliance joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin [LMT] also provides rockets for the National Security Space Launch Program (NSSL).
USSF-52 was the fifth and final NSSL mission last year for Space Systems Command’s Assured Access to Space Directorate. The Department of the Air Force picked the Falcon Heavy rocket for the launch in June 2018.
Boeing said that the X-37B has traveled more than 1.3 billion miles in its 3,774 days in space since the initial mission in April 2010. The company said that the X-37B “has consistently set new endurance records, surpassing the initial design mission duration of 270 days.”
The sixth X-37B mission logged 908-days–a record–before the spacecraft returned to Earth in November 2022, Boeing said.