(WASHINGTON POST) — The X-37B – the U.S. Air Force’s ultra-secretive, astronaut-free spacecraft that looks like a miniaturized space shuttle – just broke its own flight record of 719 days in continuous orbit.
What, exactly, the experimental spacecraft has been doing for almost exactly two years straight has puzzled analysts who can only speculate about the Pentagon’s ambitions over the low-orbit vehicle.
The U.S. Air Force has said “the primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies for America’s future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth.”
