SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launched a secret military spaceplane into orbit last night after weeks of delays, although few details about the mission have been made public.
The Falcon Heavy took off on the clandestine mission at 8:07 pm ET from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The US Space Force's X-37B spaceplane, a reusable vehicle that acts as a classified test bed for experiments in space, was the only payload on the massive rocket.
As with the other six unmanned X-37B missions, little is known about this mission. The target orbit, mission duration, and many of the payloads are classified. Even the windows of the small space plane are darkened.
One of the great mysteries of this particular mission is the Space Force's choice to reserve a triple-powered Falcon Heavy. This is the first time the Army has selected Falcon Heavy for an X-37B mission; Previously, the 29-foot-long spaceplane launched on SpaceX's smaller Falcon 9 rocket and United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket.
The additional boost could suggest this mission is headed to more distant orbits, although again, the spaceplane's mission profile is secret. The Boeing-built X-37B, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, will eventually return to Earth and land on a runway similar to that of a conventional airplane.
In a statement, the Space Force said the mission, designated USSF-52, has objectives that include “operating the reusable spaceplane in new orbital regimes, experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies, and investigating the effects of radiation on materials provided by NASA.” The only known payload addresses the last of these goals: a NASA experiment known as 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 overall since 2018. The successful launch came after more than two weeks of delays, first due to bad weather and then again due to issues that were not disclosed to the public. It was SpaceX's 97th launch this year (it completed its 98th just hours later, when a Falcon 9 launched a batch of Starlink birds around 11 p.m. ET).
