Boeing X-37

The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, is a reusable robotic spacecraft that is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, re-enters the atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. It is operated by the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office in collaboration with the United States Space Force for orbital missions meant to demonstrate reusable space technologies, and it is a 120 percent scaled derivative of the earlier Boeing X-40. The program began as a NASA project in 1999 and passed to the Department of Defense in 2004. An X-37 first flew in a drop test in 2006 and its first orbital mission launched in April 2010 on an Atlas V. Later missions grew longer, reaching 780 days for the fifth, 908 days for the sixth and 434 days for the seventh, which flew on a Falcon Heavy and landed in March 2025.