The U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane will make its debut launch on the SpaceX Falcon 9 on Sept. 7, the Air Force’s top civilian said Thursday.
“If the weather is good,” the Boeing-built X-37B will launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, announced U.S. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who declined to comment on the nature of the mission the space plane will perform.
“It’s one of our experimental platforms,” she said during an exclusive interview with Defense News and Air Force Times on Aug. 31.
The September launch will mark the start of the X-37B’s fifth mission, during which it will be outfitted with the Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader, or ASETS-11, created by the Air Force Research Lab to “test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes in the long duration space environment,” the service said earlier this summer.
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