Armed Space Drone? X-37B Drone to Travel Into Space Again

by Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

The Pentagon will soon send its robotic space drone beyond the earth’s atmosphere yet again in a new test designed to push the boundaries of possibility and better prepare the US to deter and defend itself against rapidly advancing space weapons being developed by Russia and China.

The US Air Force and its partner US Space Force will soon launch its X-37B Mission 7 emerging space drone, an evolving platform beginning with NASA and now being adapted for military use. The Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Force and the Space Force, will launch an X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle Dec. 7, 2023, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

An interesting essay from the US Space Force quotes Gen. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations, describing the upcoming experiments as “groundbreaking” and suggesting that the platform define the “art-of-the-possible.”

“These tests include operating the reusable spaceplane in new orbital regimes, experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies, and investigating the radiation effects on materials provided by NASA,” the essay says. “The X-37B Mission 7 will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time, designated USSF-52, with a wide range of test and experimentation objectives.”

This upcoming test will build upon a previous successful X-37B “de-orbit” in 2022, following a flight into space beyond the boundaries of the earth’s atmosphere.

Details of Russian or Chinese space weapons are likely not available or easy to obtain, yet both countries write in their respective newspapers about fast-developing space technologies and, in the case of China, advanced Anti-Satellite, or ASAT weapons.