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Air Force’s X-37B Spaceplane Starts Fifth Mission

By Marc Selinger

Monday, September 11th, 2017

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The U.S. Air Force launched the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle on its fifth mission Sept. 7.Dodging Hurricane Irma, the Boeing [BA]-built unmanned reusable spaceplane lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at about 10 a.m. Eastern time from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.The X-37B hosts the Air Force Research Laboratory’s second Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader (ASETS-II) payload to test experimental electronics and heat-management technology. The vehicle was also set to deploy experimental cubesats.About eight minutes after liftoff, SpaceX achieved a…

Congress

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