X-37B Returns To Earth, Space Force Won't Commit To Buying More
OTV-7 was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on December 28, 2023.
'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,' the Space Force said.
The Space Force released few details of what the X-37B got up to on its latest mission, which is very much in keeping with the level of classification that surrounds the program.
However, OTV-7 included operating the reusable spaceplane 'in new orbital regimes.' As such, the mission took the X-37B beyond the so-called geostationary orbit (GEO) belt around the Earth, as you can read more about here.
Orbits that take spacecraft beyond the GEO belt — which is defined as being around 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above sea level — are categorized as high-Earth orbits (HEO).
As previously noted, OTV-7 involved taking the X-37B for the first time on a highly elliptical orbit (confusingly, also known as HEO).
The egg-shaped HEO trajectory allows the spaceplane to maneuver itself once it's close enough to the atmosphere. This is especially advantageous when it comes to keeping potential adversaries guessing as to where the X-37B is since the spaceplane can reappear unexpectedly in orbit.
'We know that that drives them nuts, and I'm really glad about that,' former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said back in 2019 in reference to the HEO trajectory.
In its statement today, the Space Force referred to the importance of the series of aerobraking maneuvers, used for the first time, which 'demonstrated the agile and flexible capabilities the X-37B provides.'
Specifically, aerobraking is used to change the orbit of the spaceplane while expending minimal fuel. Aerobraking involves the spaceplane using the drag of the atmosphere, over the course of multiple passes, to dip into low-Earth orbit (LEO), during which it can separate from its service module.
'Mission 7 broke new ground by showcasing the X-37B's ability to flexibly accomplish its test and experimentation objectives across orbital regimes. The successful execution of the aerobraking maneuver underscores the U.S. Space Force's commitment to pushing the bounds of novel space operations in a safe and responsible manner,' said Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman
In a recent interview with Aviation Week, Saltzman also confirmed that the aerobraking maneuver was used to evaluate the Space Force's Space Surveillance Network, a collection of optical and radar sensors used to detect, track, identify, and catalog all human-made objects in orbit.
The Space Force's statement today also referred to the fact that Mission 7 included 'space domain awareness technology experiments that aim to improve the United States Space Force's knowledge of the space environment.'
FALCON HEAVY TRANSITS THE MOON: Tonight's launch of the USSF-52 mission with seventh mission of the Space Force's X-37B spaceplane. pic.twitter.com/gvOZSQDVR7
— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) December 29, 2023
As is typical for these missions, no further details were provided, although these experiments appear to tie in with the Space Force's broader effort to locate and identify objects in distant orbits, as well as maneuver close to them in order to inspect them or assess their capabilities. The service's Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, or GSSAP, is intended to achieve just this, and you can read more about it here.
'These technologies are critical to the U.S. Space Force's ability to conduct space operations in an increasingly congested and contested environment of space, to the benefit of all users of the domain,' the service added, in reference to space domain awareness experiments.
Other features of OTV-7 include the first release of a photo of Earth taken by an X-37B. In fact, this was likely the first in-orbit shot from the craft of any kind to be officially released by the Pentagon.
The image of Earth was taken 'while conducting experiments in a highly elliptical orbit,' and the camera itself is primarily used to 'ensure the health and safety of the vehicle,' the Space Force said. You can read more about it here.
At the Air & Space Forces Association's 2025 Warfare Symposium this week, the Space Force told TWZ: 'Any future plans to build additional platforms beyond the two existing test vehicles will be evaluated based upon the nation's need.'
The Space Force has also said it has no plans to use the X-37B as an operational vehicle, but the various experiments it has been carrying out will feed into any potential future U.S. spaceplane designs.
At the same time, the current two-ship X-37B fleet will also provide a better understanding of how adversaries could use similar systems. In particular, China has been busy testing a spaceplane, named Shenlong (meaning Divine Dragon), which is thought to be broadly comparable to the X-37B.
In the meantime, the X-37B has continued to conduct its highly classified missions, with the high level of classification fueling speculation about its potential use as space-based intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) or weapons platform.
What we know for sure is that the X-37Bs are assigned to the Space Force's main unit tasked with 'orbital warfare,' meaning they have an explicit military role. Notably, the X-37B that returned to Vandenberg today was wearing U.S. Space Force markings, rather than those of the U.S. Air Force, which had been applied during the previous OTV-6 mission.
This change may well also reflect a growing effort to communicate to the public about the importance of space to military operations (and daily life) and potential threats outside of the Earth's atmosphere, as well as what the U.S. government is doing about those issues.
Nevertheless, there is much more that we don't know about the X-37B than has been revealed to the public. The OTV-7 mission accomplishments are already being praised in terms of milestones in a new orbital regime, the novel aerobraking maneuver, and the testing of space domain awareness experiments. Certainly, however, there are many more significant achievements from OTV-7 that will remain under a veil of secrecy.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
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SpaceX and Musk have a history of tackling engineering problems by throwing additional staff at them: Last year, Boring Co. staff were flown to Las Vegas to get its Prufock machine back online following water damage, according to people familiar with the matter. In 2018, employees of Tesla Inc., Musk's car company, were flown in from across the country to California to help ramp up production of the Model 3. The added muscle for Starship is intended to help improve the craft's reliability and individual component testing, as well as the rate at which the company can produce more of the rockets, one of the people said. SpaceX revealed in August that a pressurized bottle holding gaseous nitrogen had been damaged, causing it to fail and lead to an explosion during fueling. The test-stand incident was the latest in a series of recent setbacks for Starship. In three test launches this year from the company's south Texas facility, two exploded prematurely, and a third failed to deploy its test satellites and spun out of control as it returned to Earth. Those failures have led to increasing questions about whether Starship will be able to fulfill Musk's aims. A New York Magazine story asked: 'Is Elon Musk's Starship Doomed?' SpaceX's impressive track record, including the construction of the Starlink satellite-internet network and its innovation on reusable rocket technology, has had a deep impact on the space industry and US space policy. It has also made SpaceX among the most highly valued private companies in the world. Since its inception, SpaceX has made highly visible test flights that sometimes fail in spectacular ways something of a calling card, with cinematic broadcasts on X, Musk's social-media platform. Its process is designed to learn from failures fast. Yet Starship's recent struggles are revealing how rapidly updating rockets that cost hundreds of millions to make can lead to a cascade of expensive issues. 'When you're changing lots of things in the design at once, all of those ripple effects start adding up,' said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on space policy. 'And it becomes more and more likely that you're not going to catch things and you will have a catastrophic failure during a test flight.' Musk has made bold predictions about Starship. In his telling, it will not only be the first fully reusable orbital rocket, but orders of magnitude cheaper than any rival. Starship would also help meet his loftiest goal: bringing humans to Mars. So far, however, Musk's early projections that it would be safe to carry humans to space by 2023 and land people on the moon as early as this year haven't panned out. 'It's really one of the hardest engineering challenges that exists,' Musk said at an event for Tesla owners in July. 'When we first started talking about Starship, people thought this was impossible. In fact, even within the company, we sort of thought it was impossible.' The misfires haven't deterred investors. The 23-year-old company has continued to raise new capital at rates more befitting a keenly watched startup than a mature, capital-hungry business. Most recently, SpaceX has been planning a sale of stock that would value the company at about $400 billion. Yet there are also signs that for SpaceX to achieve a substantially greater valuation, investors may need to see more progress on Starship. During its latest fundraising effort, in which new investors don't participate, the company had discussed a $500 billion valuation, before lowering it after consultation with backers, people familiar with the matter said. Much will hinge on what happens next. 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Some planned launches of SpaceX's Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rockets would potentially be pushed from the end of this year to early 2026 because of the surge of Falcon engineers working on Starship, the people familiar with the company's planning said. SpaceX currently has about 8,000 Starlink satellites aloft, and removing a few launches from the manifest this year wasn't seen as a show-stopping problem, the people said. Maintaining Starlink's robust financial health is important for SpaceX to absorb Starship's costs. Building one of the rockets — comprised of the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster — costs hundreds of millions of dollars, the people said. When one flight fails, the full cost of the lost vehicle falls on SpaceX, they added. The company is on the hook for other costs, too, including any environmental damage caused when failed rockets tumble back to Earth. Getting Starship right is critical to SpaceX's future. Eventually, Starship would be used to launch larger, more powerful Starlink satellites into space. Over time, the company plans to phase out the Falcon 9, making Starship its workhorse rocket, company executives have said. And above all, Starship is meant to be the primary vehicle to start a base on Mars — the reason that Musk has said he created SpaceX in the first place. A SpaceX representative didn't respond to a request for comment. Moon Landing SpaceX maintains that Starship will be landing people on the moon within the next few years. NASA has awarded SpaceX contracts worth roughly $4 billion to use Starship to shuttle astronauts to the lunar surface. To live up to that bargain, SpaceX will need to demonstrate the ability to refuel Starship more than a dozen times in orbit with back-to-back flights. That maneuver has never been performed anywhere near the scale SpaceX needs — and Starship has not yet completed a full orbit of the Earth. The pressure to move quickly has affected decisions about the design of the rocket, according to a person familiar with the process who wasn't authorized to speak publicly about SpaceX's decision-making. For recent tests, SpaceX has used a Starship prototype known as Version 2, or V2. A few of the design decisions for this version have been made in an attempt to save time and money, the person said. It's a type of risk that SpaceX and Musk like to take, but the consequences of these choices can have cascading explosive effects, which in turn have an impact on public perception. 'I don't think anything that's happened with Starship invalidates SpaceX's approach,' Carissa Christensen, founder and CEO of BryceTech, a space analytics and consulting firm, said. 'That said, the persistent failures over multiple tests are happening in a context of One: high visibility. 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Ultimately, Senator Ted Cruz included more money for Space Launch System's fourth and fifth flights after Starship's setbacks sowed doubt that it would be ready to replace the Boeing-made vehicle in the near future. SpaceX has repeatedly proven to its naysayers that it can master what was once considered near-impossible engineering. Now, it needs to regain the confidence of doubters who fear that the company might be stuck in the mud. 'The number one thing is visible, demonstrable progress,' Christensen said. 'I think that's going to go a long way toward not creating negative perceptions. And the optimal outcome from that standpoint would be that they successfully reach space with a Starship return.' Foreigners Are Buying US Homes Again While Americans Get Sidelined What Declining Cardboard Box Sales Tell Us About the US Economy Women's Earnings Never Really Recover After They Have Children Americans Are Getting Priced Out of Homeownership at Record Rates Survived Bankruptcy. 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In three test launches this year from the company's south Texas facility, two exploded prematurely, and a third failed to deploy its test satellites and spun out of control as it returned to Earth. Those failures have led to increasing questions about whether Starship will be able to fulfill Musk's aims. A New York Magazine story asked: 'Is Elon Musk's Starship Doomed?' SpaceX's impressive track record, including the construction of the Starlink satellite-internet network and its innovation on reusable rocket technology, has had a deep impact on the space industry and US space policy. It has also made SpaceX among the most highly valued private companies in the world. Since its inception, SpaceX has made highly visible test flights that sometimes fail in spectacular ways something of a calling card, with cinematic broadcasts on X, Musk's social-media platform. Its process is designed to learn from failures fast. Yet Starship's recent struggles are revealing how rapidly updating rockets that cost hundreds of millions to make can lead to a cascade of expensive issues. 'When you're changing lots of things in the design at once, all of those ripple effects start adding up,' said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on space policy. 'And it becomes more and more likely that you're not going to catch things and you will have a catastrophic failure during a test flight.' Musk has made bold predictions about Starship. In his telling, it will not only be the first fully reusable orbital rocket, but orders of magnitude cheaper than any rival. Starship would also help meet his loftiest goal: bringing humans to Mars. So far, however, Musk's early projections that it would be safe to carry humans to space by 2023 and land people on the moon as early as this year haven't panned out. 'It's really one of the hardest engineering challenges that exists,' Musk said at an event for Tesla owners in July. 'When we first started talking about Starship, people thought this was impossible. In fact, even within the company, we sort of thought it was impossible.' The misfires haven't deterred investors. The 23-year-old company has continued to raise new capital at rates more befitting a keenly watched startup than a mature, capital-hungry business. Most recently, SpaceX has been planning a sale of stock that would value the company at about $400 billion. Yet there are also signs that for SpaceX to achieve a substantially greater valuation, investors may need to see more progress on Starship. During its latest fundraising effort, in which new investors don't participate, the company had discussed a $500 billion valuation, before lowering it after consultation with backers, people familiar with the matter said. Much will hinge on what happens next. The company is aiming to launch its tenth test flight of Starship as early as Aug. 24. It's possible that SpaceX will be able to continue to absorb more testing failures, but the perception that the company is moving forward in Starship development will be key to their long-term investment success and fulfilling contractual agreements with NASA. Starship Scramble Starship is one large piece of a growing web of programs that make up the SpaceX business plan. The company began with its Falcon rocket program and added the Dragon capsule to deliver cargo and people to space. Now, the majority of its revenue comes from Starlink, which relies on a massive system of satellites in low-Earth orbit that beam broadband internet to Earth. To make Starship work, SpaceX is betting that it can draw resources away from its core rocket program at a time when the company faces weak competition. Some planned launches of SpaceX's Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rockets would potentially be pushed from the end of this year to early 2026 because of the surge of Falcon engineers working on Starship, the people familiar with the company's planning said. SpaceX currently has about 8,000 Starlink satellites aloft, and removing a few launches from the manifest this year wasn't seen as a show-stopping problem, the people said. Maintaining Starlink's robust financial health is important for SpaceX to absorb Starship's costs. Building one of the rockets — comprised of the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster — costs hundreds of millions of dollars, the people said. When one flight fails, the full cost of the lost vehicle falls on SpaceX, they added. The company is on the hook for other costs, too, including any environmental damage caused when failed rockets tumble back to Earth. Getting Starship right is critical to SpaceX's future. Eventually, Starship would be used to launch larger, more powerful Starlink satellites into space. Over time, the company plans to phase out the Falcon 9, making Starship its workhorse rocket, company executives have said. And above all, Starship is meant to be the primary vehicle to start a base on Mars — the reason that Musk has said he created SpaceX in the first place. A SpaceX representative didn't respond to a request for comment. Moon Landing SpaceX maintains that Starship will be landing people on the moon within the next few years. NASA has awarded SpaceX contracts worth roughly $4 billion to use Starship to shuttle astronauts to the lunar surface. To live up to that bargain, SpaceX will need to demonstrate the ability to refuel Starship more than a dozen times in orbit with back-to-back flights. That maneuver has never been performed anywhere near the scale SpaceX needs — and Starship has not yet completed a full orbit of the Earth. The pressure to move quickly has affected decisions about the design of the rocket, according to a person familiar with the process who wasn't authorized to speak publicly about SpaceX's decision-making. For recent tests, SpaceX has used a Starship prototype known as Version 2, or V2. A few of the design decisions for this version have been made in an attempt to save time and money, the person said. It's a type of risk that SpaceX and Musk like to take, but the consequences of these choices can have cascading explosive effects, which in turn have an impact on public perception. 'I don't think anything that's happened with Starship invalidates SpaceX's approach,' Carissa Christensen, founder and CEO of BryceTech, a space analytics and consulting firm, said. 'That said, the persistent failures over multiple tests are happening in a context of One: high visibility. Two: a company that typically moves very fast and very successfully on innovation and Three: in a world where programmatic objectives depend on this vehicle,' notably NASA's moon mission. The frenetic pace of Starship's development may also be a contributing factor to its missteps, with quickly implemented changes sometimes having unforeseen effects on other parts of the vehicle. For instance, a seal on the vehicle's Raptor engines began to fail after SpaceX started adding more propellant on later flights, according to a person briefed on the matter who was not authorized to discuss the program's inner workings publicly. Many engineers at SpaceX continue to operate under the philosophy that every launch is a learning opportunity and that it's better to fail prematurely and often than wait years to execute a perfect flight. That thinking has been nurtured by the company's large resources and continuing access to vast sums of capital. SpaceX is known to be 'hardware rich,' meaning that it is consistently producing multiple rocket prototypes that are available to test and tweak. It is committed to testing its remaining inventory of V2 Starships despite a consensus at the company that the design is subpar, according to people familiar with the matter. Engineers think there are lessons to learn from launching the rest of the V2s, the people said. Above all, engineers need to get better data from Starship's heat shield tiles to help perfect the vehicle's tiles haven't returned intact during any flights this year. This year, the White House proposed phasing out the Space Launch System, a massive rocket built by Boeing Co., after is third flight. The White House argued that SLS was overbudget and inefficient, and that it should be eventually replaced with commercial alternatives, with SpaceX's Starship an implied option. Ultimately, Senator Ted Cruz included more money for Space Launch System's fourth and fifth flights after Starship's setbacks sowed doubt that it would be ready to replace the Boeing-made vehicle in the near future. SpaceX has repeatedly proven to its naysayers that it can master what was once considered near-impossible engineering. Now, it needs to regain the confidence of doubters who fear that the company might be stuck in the mud. 'The number one thing is visible, demonstrable progress,' Christensen said. 'I think that's going to go a long way toward not creating negative perceptions. And the optimal outcome from that standpoint would be that they successfully reach space with a Starship return.' Foreigners Are Buying US Homes Again While Americans Get Sidelined What Declining Cardboard Box Sales Tell Us About the US Economy Women's Earnings Never Really Recover After They Have Children Americans Are Getting Priced Out of Homeownership at Record Rates Survived Bankruptcy. 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After Soaring 1,000% Since the Start of 2023, Is Rocket Lab Stock a Buy Today?
Key Points Rocket Lab's future hinges on the development of its large Neutron rocket. The company is vertically integrating its space services to try to win both commercial and government contracts. Rocket Lab's stock price is getting ahead of its growth potential. 10 stocks we like better than Rocket Lab › Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) has made investors happy in the last few years. Since the start of 2023, the stock is up over 1,000%, turning a $10,000 investment into over $100,000, with most of these gains coming in the last few quarters. Wall Street is aggressively bullish on this space and rocket launch provider that some believe could be the next SpaceX. Today, Rocket Lab is on the cusp of a huge catalyst for its business: commercializing a new rocket type called the Neutron. Does that make the stock a buy even after these massive stock gains? Growing launch capabilities with the Neutron After beginning its journey as a rocket launch company with a small payload provider called the Electron, Rocket Lab is currently in testing to develop the next phase of its business. This is through a rocket type called the Neutron, which can deliver payload capacities much greater than the Electron system. While the Electron is a solid business that is now on pace to do over 20 launches a year, it will always remain a niche service from a revenue perspective due to its small size. Larger payloads equate to more revenue potential per launch, which is why the Neutron is vital for the company. The Neutron can deliver payloads equivalent to SpaceX's Falcon 9, which charges over $50 million per flight. For reference, Rocket Lab's total revenue over the last 12 months was $500 million. By the end of this year, Rocket Lab expects to make its first test flight with the Neutron, and then plans for commercialized trips in 2026. Once ready, Neutron will be the first direct competitor SpaceX has ever had in the medium launch market. Not only will the Neutron enable Rocket Lab to get more launch revenue, it will open up contracts through its vertical integration strategy in what it calls Space Systems revenue. These are capabilities it has acquired or built itself where the company builds items for its launch customers. These could include satellites, solar arrays, telecommunication systems, virtually anything a company (or the U.S. government and its allies) want to have in orbit. Vertically integrating the services space customers want should help Rocket Lab win new customer contracts. Combining Space Systems together with the Neutron is a multibillion-dollar opportunity for the company and a competitive advantage against its peers. Expanding contract opportunities Commercial opportunities for satellite launches should continue en masse in the near future. Companies want to launch tens of thousands of satellites into orbit for services such as satellite internet at Amazon's Project Kuiper, among other opportunities. Rocket Lab's current backlog is only $1 billion and hasn't moved higher in a few quarters, but management had a good explanation for this stagnation on the recent earnings conference call. Customers are waiting until the Neutron rocket is fully operational to commit orders. Again, this shows how vital the Neutron development is for the business. Government contracts could be even more lucrative over the long term. Rocket Lab is vying for contracts such as the Golden Dome, a United States satellite-based defense system with a budget of $175 billion. Rocket Lab is one of the few defense contractors with the capabilities to quickly build these defense systems, as long as the Neutron is fully operational. Combine the commercial and government opportunities and Rocket Lab's revenue should keep growing at a rapid clip over the next decade. It wouldn't be shocking if its current $500 million in revenue grew by 10x to $5 billion within a decade. Is Rocket Lab stock a buy? Rocket Lab is a fast-growing company, so it is no surprise that investors have bid up the stock to monstrous levels. The stock currently has a market cap of over $20 billion and a price-to-sales ratio (P/S) of 45, which is significantly higher than the average stock. Rocket Lab is growing much faster than the average company, but these are high expectations for future growth nonetheless. The business does not have extremely high profit margins, either. Its gross margin is slightly above 30% and guidance calls for progression to 40% or higher, but this is not a software business. Margin expansion will be limited, and bottom-line net income margin will likely not expand to much higher than 10% or 15% once the business matures. A 10% profit margin on $5 billion in future revenue -- which is 10 times today's level -- equates to $500 million in earnings. That would bring Rocket Lab's price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) down to about 20, or around the market average. But how long will it take Rocket Lab to scale to this level of earnings? I think it could take 10 years. This makes Rocket Lab's stock expensive despite its massive growth potential, meaning that investors should avoid buying shares unless the stock takes a significant dip from current levels. Should you invest $1,000 in Rocket Lab right now? Before you buy stock in Rocket Lab, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Rocket Lab wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $671,466!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,115,633!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,077% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 185% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 18, 2025 Brett Schafer has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon and Rocket Lab. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. After Soaring 1,000% Since the Start of 2023, Is Rocket Lab Stock a Buy Today? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
