Air Force X-37B is on its mysterious mission of circulating Earth and this is considered as the longest ever in the history of the U.S. The robotic space plane has been in orbit since May 2015 and now it breaks the recorded length of 674 days. As of March 30, 2017, the Orbital Test Vehicle or OTV-4 sets a new record of 680 days in orbit and still going on.
There is no report yet on the end date of the Air Force X-37B mission that has been released by the U.S. Air Force authorities. The landing date of the X-37B is dependent on when the mission will be completed. However, this record set by the space plane is nothing compared to the almost 50 decades set by other space shuttle orbiters.
The X-37B was launched from the Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida but it will not be landing in the same facility. According to Space, the plane will be coming back to Earth and will land at the Kennedy Space Center, which is just adjacent to Cape Canaveral. This will be the first time that X-37B OTV vehicle will be landing at NASA's old Shuttle Landing Facility.
The U.S. Air Force has two X-37B OTVs and these were manufactured by Boeing. These vehicles have the ability for both vertical and horizontal launching in the NASA runway. Built like the miniature version of the space shuttle, the X-37B has a dimension of 8.8 feet long and 9.6 feet tall.
For those who are following the U.S. Air Force X-37B space missions, it is worth noting that the flights are intended for testing space technologies as well as to conduct of experiments for examination.