HELSINKI, Finland – Tensions rise as new developments reveal the US military’s latest X-37B spaceplane may be reaching new heights. Launched into orbit on top of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the spacecraft was speculated to have the potential to reach higher altitudes than previous missions. This speculation was confirmed by Tomi Simola, a satellite tracking hobbyist living near Helsinki, who detected the spaceplane using a sky-watching camera.
Simola reported the exciting news on social media and the SeeSat-L forum, announcing that his satellite camera had captured images of the Orbital Test Vehicle 7 (OTV-7), identifying it as the X-37B spaceplane. This was further supported by Mike McCants, a seasoned satellite observer, and Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and spaceflight expert.
Amateur observations of the spaceplane indicate that it is flying in a highly elliptical orbit, ranging between 201 and 24,133 miles in altitude. This speculation was not far off from predictions made by the hobbyist tracking community before the launch in December. However, the Space Force has not disclosed any information about the orbit of the X-37B.
This is the seventh flight of an X-37B spaceplane since its launch in 2010. The mission is focused on a wide range of test and experimentation objectives, including flying in new orbital regimes, according to military officials. The spaceplane is designed to spend multiple years in space with the use of solar power and then return to Earth for a landing either at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California or at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The spacecraft measures 29 feet long and resembles a miniature version of NASA’s retired space shuttle orbiter, equipped with a cargo bay for payloads and a service module for additional experiments and small satellites. The experiment package for this flight includes investigations into new “space domain awareness technologies” and an experiment by NASA to measure how plant seeds respond to sustained exposure to space radiation.
Despite the secrecy surrounding the X-37B, analysts believe it is more likely a testbed for new space technologies rather than a classified weapons platform in orbit. Speculation continues to fuel discussions about the spacecraft’s purpose, including the possibility of testing an infrared sensor for future early warning satellites. However, definitive answers about the X-37B’s mission remain elusive, leaving much room for continued speculation.