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 The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

X-37B The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. It is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, re-enters Earth's atmosphere, and lands as a spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the Department of t ...

, an American unmanned vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing

spaceplane A spaceplane is a vehicle that can flight, fly and gliding flight, glide as an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere and function as a spacecraft in outer space. To do so, spaceplanes must incorporate features of both aircraft and spacecraft. Orbit ...

. It was launched to a highly elliptical

high Earth orbit A high Earth orbit is a geocentric orbit with an apsis, apogee farther than that of the geosynchronous orbit, which is height above mean sea level, away from Earth. In this article, the non-standard abbreviation of ''HEO'' is used for high Ear ...

aboard a

Falcon Heavy Falcon Heavy is a super heavy-lift launch vehicle with partial reusability that can carry cargo into Earth orbit and beyond. It is designed, manufactured and launched by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket consists of a center core ...

rocket (for the first time) from

LC-39A Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39, Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, was built in t ...

on December 29, 2023 at 01:07:00

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

(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 The Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO or DAF RCO) is an office in the United States Department of the Air Force tasked with expediting the development of select technological systems. The RCO was activated by the secretar ...

and

United States Space Force The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space force branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces, armed forces of the United States and one of the eight uniformed services of the Unite ...

, which considers the mission

classified Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper * The Classified, a 1980s American ro ...

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.

Background and mission

OTV-7 is the fourth mission for the second X-37B built, and the seventh X-37B mission overall. It was flown on a

in the expendable center core-recoverable side cores configuration, and launched from

Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, was built in the 1960s to accommodate the Saturn V l ...

. It is the second classified flight of Falcon Heavy, awarded in June 2018. It is valued at US$130 million, increased to $149.2 million in August 2021, due to "a change in the contract requirements" and was expected to be completed by 14 April 2022. Draft solicitation said the launch was to GTO. A month before launch, the Air Force announced that the mission would fly an

spaceplane. OTV-7 was deployed into a highly elliptical

HEO Heo is a family name in Korea. It is also often spelled as Huh or Hur, or less commonly as Her or Hue. In South Korea in 1985, out of a population of between roughly 40 and 45 million, there were approximately 264,000 people surnamed Heo. The na ...

orbit of x x 59.1° orbit. In Oct 2024, OTV-7 was due to undertake aerobraking maneuvers to safely dispose of its service module. On 20 February 2025, a photograph taken by an OTV onboard camera whilst in orbit was published, making it the first official publicly-released image from the program. OTV-7 landed after 434 days at

Vandenberg Space Force Base Vandenberg Space Force Base , previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from the ...

on March 7, 2025 at 07:22 UTC (March 6, 11:22 pm PST, local time at the landing site).

Payloads and experiments

Onboard experiments include NASA's ''Seeds-2'' experiment investigating the effects of space-based radiation on plant seeds during a long-duration spaceflight.

References

{{Orbital launches in 2023 Boeing X-37 December 2023 in the United States Spacecraft launched in 2023 USA satellites United States Space Force

Background and mission

Payloads and experiments

See also

References