Falcon 9 abort seen from press site

The U.S. military’s experimental spaceplane will soon soar to orbit using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time, a Pentagon news release announced. The X-37B spacecraft will launch from the Kennedy Space Center no earlier than December 7.

The secretive winged spacecraft launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Dec. 29, 2023 to conduct a classified mission. The landing concludes the seventh flight of the Boeing-built spacecraft since 2010.

The Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture constellation is expected to deliver global coverage beginning in 2027. Launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base occurred at 7:12 a.m. PDT (10:12 a.m. EDT / 1412 UTC).