{"id":46461,"date":"2025-08-22T01:34:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T06:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=46461"},"modified":"2025-08-22T05:05:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T10:05:58","slug":"another-us-military-mini-shuttle-launches-on-a-secret-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=46461","title":{"rendered":"Another US military mini shuttle launches on a secret mission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Another&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/secret-space-plane-x-37b-4faa4c90a44b2cac111709af9106c6db\">U.S. military mini shuttle<\/a>&nbsp;blasted off Thursday night to conduct classified&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/space-force-mini-space-shuttle-b62ef48f514dff2a3737afc2e5c241e6\">experiments in space<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Launched by SpaceX, the space plane with no one aboard took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It&#8217;s the eighth such flight for the test vehicles known as&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/space-exploration-science-technology-climate-and-environment-us-air-force-f5abfe7f9bd77268145c7f3a524c720b\">X-37B<\/a>. This one will test laser communications and safe navigation without GPS, according to the U.S. Space Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">It&#8217;s not yet clear how long the mini shuttle will remain aloft. The last X-37B circled the globe for a little over a year before returning to Earth in March. Previous missions have lasted months to years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The Boeing-made reusable space planes were first launched in 2010 and are 29 feet (9 meters) long with a wingspan of almost 15 feet (4.5 meters).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Technology\/wireStory\/us-military-mini-shuttle-launches-secret-mission-124869782\">abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another&nbsp;U.S. military mini shuttle&nbsp;blasted off Thursday night to conduct classified&nbsp;experiments in space. Launched by SpaceX, the space plane with no one aboard took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It&#8217;s the eighth such flight for the test vehicles known as&nbsp;X-37B. This one will test laser communications and safe navigation without GPS, according to the U.S. Space [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":46462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[1324,1156,34442],"class_list":["post-46461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-another","tag-military","tag-mini"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46463,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46461\/revisions\/46463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}