An unmanned and apparently very mysterious X-37B space plane landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday.

The word “mysterious” is going to crop up a lot in this article so brace yourself. This plane is so mysterious it should have its own spy movie franchise.

When the plane landed, it wrapped up a record 780 days in space. In fact, it broke its own record because this isn’t the first time its been up there.

The X-37B space plane is reusable, reports CNET, and that might be part of what it’s actually testing:

Altogether, the program, which has at least two of the reusable planes, has logged 2,865 days in space over the course of five missions, the Air Force said. The fifth mission launched on Sept. 7, 2017, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The Air Force plans to launch a sixth X-37B mission sometime in 2020.

SpaceX is Elon Musk’s company. This must be part of his rocket ride-share initiative.

The Boeing-built space planes resemble a smaller version of NASA’s space shuttles and have a similar reentry trajectory that uses a runway, like the old shuttles. They feature a small payload bay and use a deployable solar array for power.

The 11,000-pound vehicle is about 29 feet long, with a wingspan of just under 15 feet, and was designed to stay in orbit for 270 days.

It was originally a NASA program, with roots in the space agency’s lifting-body research, that ran from 1999 to 2004. The X-37B is designed to serve as a platform for experiments and to offer insights on transporting satellite sensors and other equipment to and from space.

CNN calls it the “space plane of mystery” in a variation on the “mysterious space plane” theme. It also explains why the plane is so mysterious.

The exact details of these experiments are a closely guarded secret. In a statement, the Air Force only revealed that the program “performs risk reduction, experimentation and concept of operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies.”

The mission is so secret that people have started speculating that the planes are being used for spying or testing space weapons.

The Air Force has provided some hints about its program. In a press release Sunday, it said the latest X-37B mission conducted experiments for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

The AFRL develops “warfighting technologies” for the air, space and cyberspace sectors, according to its website — for instance, it’s developing laser weapons that eventually may be mounted onto aircraft.

So Trump might get his ‘Space Force‘ after all.

I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.

[sources:cnet&cnn]