The Air Force\u2019s unmanned aircraft, X-37B, landed successfully Sunday morning at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center — but it didn\u2019t come down quietly.<\/p>\n
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The space plane sent a sonic boom that rattled east-central Florida before 8 a.m., waking residents from their weekend slumber.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThought somebody crashed into my garage … It was just a sonic boom … Thanks @NASA for the scare!\u201d said one woman on Twitter.<\/p>\n
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The X-37B, which looks like a small plane, made history by landing for the first time in Florida instead of California. It also set the on-orbit endurance record at 718 days, or almost two years.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOur team has been preparing for this event for several years, and I am extremely proud to see our hard work and dedication culminate in today\u2019s safe and successful landing of the X-37B,\u201d said Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith in a press release.<\/p>\n
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So what was this unmanned aircraft doing in space that long? There\u2019s been mystery surrounding this question for many years.<\/p>\n
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The Air Force maintains that the reusable plane \u201cperforms risk reduction, experimentation and concept of operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n
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But many speculate about other possible uses, including spying activities or testing of a secret space weapon.<\/p>\n
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This completed mission extends the program to 2,085 days in space.<\/p>\n
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The Air Force is preparing to launch the fifth X-37B mission from Florida\u2019s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station later in 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Air Force’s unmanned aircraft, X-37B, landed successfully Sunday morning at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — but it didn’t come down quietly. The space plane sent a sonic boom that rattled east-central Florida before 8 a.m., waking residents from their weekend slumber. “Thought somebody crashed into my garage … It was just a sonic boom … Thanks @NASA for the scare!” said one woman on Twitter. The X-37B, which looks like a small plane, made history by landing for the first time in Florida instead of California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6631,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6629\/revisions\/6631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}