Secretive Mini-Shuttle Reportedly Being Prepped For Launch

The X-37B space plane may fly again in September, but the Air Force is playing the actual launch date close to the vest.

When it does launch, it will be carried into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Inside Outer Space relays various media reports that indicated the launch is planned for early September, but Capt. Annmarie Annicelli, a U.S. Air Force spokeswoman, told the website that at this time "I do not have a launch date to release."

OTV-5 will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

There have been four previous flights of the two X-37B spacecraft. They have ranged in length from 224 days in space to 718 days on the most recent mission, which ended on with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility on May 7. All previous missions had landed at Vandenberg AFB in California.

According to the Air Force, the payload for OTV-5 will be the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader, or ASETS-11, an instrument designed to test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes in a long-duration space environment.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104539/x-37b-orbital-test-vehicle/