Highly secret American military spacecraft returned to Earth on Friday after a 22-month mission in space, officials said, although the purpose of the machine remains a mystery.
Unmanned X-37B machine, like a small space shuttle type spacecraft landed in California in the Vandenberg Air Force Base; 2012, December 11th, he was released into the mission, the military still keeps strictly secret.
"Extremely proud of our team, which was able to safely and successfully landing him the third time," - said the United States Army 30th Space Wing Commander Keith BALTSO spacecraft has landed at 9 am. 24 minutes. local time.
According to analysts, the X-37B space is probably spyware platform, from which you can also follow other countries satellites.
Denying it - space weapon
But officials earlier denied that this project in any way affiliated with the efforts to create a "space weapon" that could shoot down other satellites.
United States Air Force has indicated that in the X-37B flights will be tested in a reusable spacecraft technologies and unnamed conducted experiments whose results are analyzed on Earth.
Recently completed the third flight, and has the longest mission of the unit. X-37B was first launched in 2010, and remained in orbit for about eight months, and the second flight he orbited the Earth for more than 15 months.
Weighs 5 tonnes
X-37B, produced by aerospace giant Boeing, weighs five tons. Its length - 8.8 meters, and the total wingspan - about 4.5 meters.
About 25 times faster than the sound of a whirling machine is raised into space launcher, but after returning from the mission to orbit plane.
Their appearance is different from the two NASA spacecraft civilian tail stabilizers, set out in the letter "V" form.
