In a rare revelation, the Pentagon is providing an update on the X-37B spaceplane

“When it’s close to Earth, it’s close enough to the atmosphere to shift where it is,” she said. “Which means our opponents don’t know — and this is happening on the far side of the Earth from our opponents — where it’s going to come next. And we know it drives them crazy. And I’m really happy about that.”

Break the silence

The Pentagon rarely issues an update on the X-37B spaceplane mid-mission. During previous flights, military officials typically provided some background information about the mission before launch, then remained silent until the X-37B returned for landing. The military keeps details regarding the spaceplane’s activities in orbit secret.

That’s what made Thursday’s Space Force announcement somewhat surprising. When the X-37B’s seventh flight lifted off, there were indications that the spacecraft would soar to an orbit much higher than it had done on any of its previous six missions.

In February, an amateur satellite tracker spotted the X-37B in orbit by observing sunlight reflected from the spacecraft as it flew thousands of miles above Earth. Follow-up observations confirmed this discovery, allowing amateur observers to estimate that the X-37B was flying in a highly elliptical orbit approximately 300 to 38,600 miles (186 x 23,985 miles) in altitude. The orbit was inclined 59.1 degrees from the equator.

In its previous missions, the X-37B was confined to low Earth orbit a few hundred miles above the planet. When it became clear that the final mission was flying at a much higher altitude, analysts and space enthusiasts speculated about what the secret spaceplane was doing and how it would return to Earth. A direct reentry into the atmosphere from the spaceplane’s elliptical orbit would expose the vehicle’s heat shield to higher temperatures than any previous reentry.

Now, we have an answer to the last question.

As for what it’s doing there, the Space Force said the spaceplane on this mission “conducted radiative forcing experiments and tested space domain awareness techniques in a highly elliptical orbit.” The orbit brings the

Previous X-37B flights have tested a Hall effect ion engine and tested other experimental space technologies, military officials said, without elaborating. The X-37Bs also secretly deployed small military satellites into orbit.