US Military Launches Robot Spaceplane on 7th Mission

The mission marks the first time the plane has been launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket capable of delivering it into a higher orbit than ever before.

The Falcon Heavy, made up of three rocket cores strapped together, roared off its launch pad from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday in a nighttime lift-off that was streamed live, Al Jazeera reported.

The US launch comes two weeks after China’s own robot spaceplane, known as the Shenlong, or Divine Dragon, was launched on its third mission into orbit since 2020, adding a new twist to the two countries’ growing rivalry in space.

The Pentagon has disclosed few details about the X-37B mission, which is expected to last for years and is being conducted by the US Space Force under the military’s National Security Space Launch program.

The Boeing-built aircraft, which is about nine meters (29 feet) long and resembles a mini space shuttle, is unmanned and carries various experiments.