A top secret US spacecraft is rewriting the rules of warfare

The X-37B returned to Earth last month, but details of its time in space remain a mystery

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On 21 August, in the dead of night, a mysterious spacecraft launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The craft in question was the eerily named X-37B — an experimental and highly secretive US government project that has been quietly unfolding for more than a decade.

The launch marks its eighth mission in space, after racking up 4,208 days in orbit on its previous flights.

Details about the X-37B and its mission remain scarce. Over the years, only a trickle of information has emerged, allowing us to piece together fragments of what’s happening above our heads.

While the race to return to the Moon plays out in full view — driven by private corporations and national space agencies — another, more shadowy contest is unfolding behind the scenes: the race to militarise space.

This is where the X-37B comes in — one of many covert experiments likely being conducted by the US, Russia and China, among others. Recently, new details have emerged about this enigmatic spacecraft, offering a rare glimpse into its features and what the future of military space operations might hold.

TESTING ITS CAPABILITIES

The X-37B is not new, per se, but its capabilities put it at the cutting edge of space exploration and defence. Built by Boeing, the spacecraft was born out of NASA’s X-37 programme, which began in 1999, although the X-37B’s first flight wasn’t until 2010.

Since then, control of the spaceplane has passed from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and, most recently, the United States Space Force (USSF).

“The US stood up the Space Force as a separate service in 2019, partly in recognition that any future war will have a significant space component,” says Vivienne Machi, military space editor at Aviation Week.