Boeing’s secret X-37B autonomous space plane landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 12 after a record 908-day stay in orbit, US Space Forces said. The duration of the mission is 780 days.
The launch of the Orbital Test Vehicle-6 (OTV-6) mission took place two and a half years ago with the Air Force at Cape Canaveral using an Atlas V 501 launch vehicle. Like all the previous five missions, its program is strictly classified. A feature of the presence was the presence of a ring-shaped module attached to the stern for the payload of conducting and additional experiments.
On the eve of returning to Earth, OTV-6 undocked it, after which it returned to orbit for some time, from where it left for the dense layers of the atmosphere in temperature conditions to burn out over the South Pacific Ocean.
During the mission, several scientific experiments were carried out, including the detection of radiation sources and their transmission to Earth using a photoelectric RF antenna module, the launch of the FalconSat-8 satellite of the US Air Force Academy and NASA METIS-2 with the nature of various materials in space conditions. Also, biologists found in the national culture sperm OTV-6, which turned out to be in cosmic radiation. Perhaps someday they will grow mission participants on other planets.
Source: Tech Cult
