U.S. Space Force releases first public orbital photo of the X-37B spaceplane

The Boeing X‑37B Orbital Test Vehicle—a highly secretive, unmanned and reusable spaceplane from the United States Space Force—made an appearance today in an official photo circulating on social media.

This image, captured via an onboard camera typically used for vehicle health monitoring during its seventh mission (OTV‑7), offers a glimpse of Earth from the X‑37B’s unusual orbit.

The X-37B was launched from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on December 28, 2023, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. To date, OTV‑7 has been aloft for more than 400 days.

NASA origins

Originally developed from a NASA project in the late 1990s and later transitioned to military service, the X‑37B is a reusable, unmanned spaceplane capable of flying missions lasting up to 908 days.

The craft measures 29 feet (8.9 m) in length and weighing approximately 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kg) at launch. Its wingspan is 14 feet, 11 inches (4.5 meters). Also, the craft can autonomously land on a runway, similar to NASA’s decommissioned Space Shuttle.

The spacecraft’s high-efficiency Hall-effect thrusters and thermal protection systems have evolved significantly over successive flights, enabling longer and more complex missions.

In addition to its challenging orbital profile, the X‑37B is testing novel aerobraking techniques. Aerobraking taps atmospheric drag to slow or adjust a spacecraft’s orbit without expending large amounts of fuel—a method known from planetary missions to Mars and Venus, but newly applied here for a reusable Earth-orbiting vehicle.

Experimentation and OTV-7’s objectives

In OTV‑7, this maneuver also serves a secondary purpose: disposing of the service module in a controlled manner to mitigate space debris. OTV-7 is focused on space domain awareness technologies and investigating the radiation effects on materials provided by NASA.

As Wikipedia notes, the primary objectives of the X‑37B center on demonstrating reusable spacecraft technologies and hosting experiments for return and analysis on Earth. The program’s estimated total cost has reached around $2 billion over all its missions, with each dedicated U.S. Space Force Falcon Heavy launch costing approximately $150 million.

The timing of OTV‑7 also comes amid China’s continued testing of its Shenlong spaceplane, which has reportedly flown two times since December 2023. Some observers highlight this parallel as evidence of growing global interest—and potential military competition—in reusable orbital systems. While the U.S. Space Force emphasizes the peaceful experimentation nature of X‑37B missions such as exploring the impacts of space exposure on seeds, as in Seeds-2, critics caution that dual-use technologies could be adapted for anti-satellite or other military applications. A Reuters article, for instance, explores the potential of a similar Chinese spaceplane to be used for military applications.

In 2019, the X‑37B craft won the Robert J. Collier Trophy for its role in advancing state-of-the-art air and space vehicles.