{"id":17589,"date":"2023-12-29T09:43:30","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T04:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/military-space-plane-blasts-off-on-another-secretive-mission\/"},"modified":"2023-12-29T09:43:30","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T04:13:30","slug":"military-space-plane-blasts-off-on-another-secretive-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/military-space-plane-blasts-off-on-another-secretive-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Military space plane blasts off on another secretive mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The U.S. military\u2019s X-37B space plane blasted off Thursday on another secretive mission that\u2019s expected to last at least a couple of years.<\/p>\n

Like previous missions, the reusable plane resembling a mini space shuttle carried classified experiments. There\u2019s no one on board.<\/p>\n

The space plane took off aboard SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center at night, more than two weeks late because of technical issues.<\/p>\n

It marked the seventh flight of an X-37B, which has logged more than 10 years in orbit since its debut in 2010.<\/p>\n

\"Image:<\/picture>
The military’s X-37B space plane lifts off on its seventh mission to orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Thursday.<\/span>Joe Skipper \/ Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The last flight, the longest one yet, lasted 2 \u00bd years before ending on a runway at Kennedy a year ago.<\/p>\n

Space Force officials would not say how long this orbital test vehicle would remain aloft or what\u2019s on board other than a NASA experiment to gauge the effects of radiation on materials.<\/p>\n

Built by Boeing, the X-37B resembles NASA\u2019s retired space shuttles. But they\u2019re just one-fourth the size at 29 feet long. No astronauts are needed; the X-37B has an autonomous landing system.<\/p>\n

They take off vertically like rockets but land horizontally like planes, and are designed to orbit between 150 miles and 500 miles high. There are two X-37Bs based in a former shuttle hangar at Kennedy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ad_1] The U.S. military\u2019s X-37B space plane blasted off Thursday on another secretive mission that\u2019s expected to last at least a couple of years. Like previous missions, the reusable plane resembling a mini space shuttle carried classified experiments. There\u2019s no one on board. The space plane took off aboard SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}