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The Boeing-built X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) is shown at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022. The unmanned U.S. military space plane landed early Saturday after spending a record 908 days in orbit for its sixth mission and conducting science experiments. The solar-powered vehicle, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Its previous mission lasted 780 days. Credit: Boeing /U.S. Space Force via AP   An unmanned U.S. Military space plane landed early Saturday after spending a record 908 days in orbit for its sixth mission and conducting science experiments. The solar-powered vehicle, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Its previous mission lasted 780 days. “Since the X-37B’s first launch in 2010, it has shattered records and provided our nation with an unrivaled capability to rapidly test and integrate new space technologies,” said Jim Chilton, a s...

The classic image of a capsule landing into the sea, returning to Earth with a team of astronauts from outer space is not only an iconic part of the final hours of a NASA mission but also a spectacle of human scientific achievement. But ever hungry for more advancements, between 1963 and 1975, NASA tried to improve this process by funding a series of experimental wingless aircraft called ‘lifting bodies’ designed to fly rather than crash land back on Earth. One of these was the M2-F3, issued by NASA and built by the main contractor, Northrop. It would take several arduous years, and one dreadful mishap, for the merits of this new design to be fully realized. Background In 1957 the Assistant Director for Research and Development Analysis and Planning at the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, later renamed the NASA Ames Research Center, conceived a revolutionary idea, building on the foundations of a cutting-edge research project focused on the return of missile cones from spa...