OTV-7
Sign in to saveAlso known as USSF-52, X-37B OTV-7, Orbital Test Vehicle 7, AFSPC-52, USA-349
thumb|An X-37B onboard camera captures an image of Earth Orbital Test Vehicle 7 (OTV-7), also referred to as United States Space Force-52 (USSF-52) or USA-349, is the fourth flight of the second Boeing X-37B, an American unmanned vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing spaceplane. It was launched to a highly elliptical high Earth orbit aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket (for the first time) from LC-39A on 29 December 2023 at 01:07:00 UTC (December 28, 8:07 pm EST, local time at the launch site).
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- Background and mission
- Payloads and experiments
- See also
- References
thumb|An X-37B onboard camera captures an image of Earth Orbital Test Vehicle 7 (OTV-7), also referred to as United States Space Force-52 (USSF-52) or USA-349, is the fourth flight of the second Boeing X-37B, an American unmanned vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing spaceplane. It was launched to a highly elliptical high Earth orbit aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket (for the first time) from LC-39A on 29 December 2023 at 01:07:00 UTC (December 28, 8:07 pm EST, local time at the launch site).
The spaceplane is operated by the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and United States Space Force, which considers the mission classified and as such has not revealed the objectives. The spaceplane was sent to orbit with a wide range of test and experimentation objectives. These tests include operating in new orbital regimes, experimenting with space domain awareness technologies and investigating the radiation effects to materials provided by NASA.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “OTV-7” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.