SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launched a secret military space plane into orbit last night after weeks of delays, but details about the mission have yet to be released to the public.
The Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 8:07 pm Eastern time on a secret mission. The U.S. Space Force’s X-37B space plane is a reusable vehicle that serves as a classified test bed for space experiments and is the only payload on a large rocket.
As with the other six unmanned X-37B missions, little is known about this one. The target orbit, mission duration and many payloads are classified. Even the windows of the little space shuttle were darkened.
One of the great mysteries of this particular mission is the Space Force’s choice to order a triple-boost Falcon Heavy rocket. This is the first time the military has selected a Falcon Heavy aircraft for an X-37B mission; the 29-foot-long space plane has previously launched aboard SpaceX’s smaller Falcon 9 and United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket.
The additional boost could indicate the mission is heading to a farther orbit, although the space plane’s mission profile remains secret. The X-37B, built by Boeing, looks like a miniature space shuttle that will eventually return to Earth and land on a runway similar to a conventional aircraft.
The U.S. Space Force said in a statement that the goals of the mission, named USSF-52, include “operating a reusable space shuttle in a new orbital regime, testing future space domain awareness technologies, and investigating NASA-provided Radiation effects of materials”. The only known payload involves the last target: a NASA experiment called Seeds-2, which will explore what happens to plants when they are exposed to the harsh radiation of space.
This is the fifth time SpaceX has launched a Falcon Heavy rocket this year and the ninth time since 2018. The successful launch came after more than two weeks of delays, first due to bad weather and then due to other issues. Not disclosed to the public. This was SpaceX’s 97th launch of the year (just a few hours later, a Falcon 9 launched a batch of Starlink birds around 11 p.m. Eastern time, SpaceX’s 98th launch).
