X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Concludes Seventh Successful Mission

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X-37B orbital test vehicle concludes sixth successful mission (photo by Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks).

April 15, 2025 | Originally published by U.S. Space Force on March 8, 2025

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFNS) — The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7 (OTV-7), the U.S. Space Force’s dynamic unmanned spaceplane, successfully deorbited and landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base (SFB), California, on March 7, 2025, at 02:22 a.m. EST.

The U.S. Space Force landed the X-37B at Vandenberg SFB, California, to exercise its rapid ability to launch and recover its systems across multiple sites. X-37B’s Mission 7 was the first launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket to a Highly Elliptical Orbit. While on orbit, Mission 7 accomplished a range of test and experimentation objectives intended to demonstrate the X-37B’s robust maneuver capability while helping characterize the space domain through the testing of space domain awareness technology experiments.

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