Air Force's Secret Space Plane Set to Blast Off Again

A secret military spacecraft is set to blast

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off from Cape Canaveral this week, this time with an assist from private industry. If all goes well, the X-37B will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center on September 7th on a SpaceX Falcon rocket. The space plane, which is smaller than a city bus, will carry classified military cargo.

The X-37B was conceived as a cost-effective alternative to the Space Shuttle. The spacecraft, which appears similar to the shuttle that inspired it, rides into space atop a space launch vehicle rocket and glides back down to Earth to land on a conventional runway. The missions are run on the ground by 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.