Reusable Uncrewed Orbital Spaceplanes

Uncrewed winged vehicles that reach Earth orbit, spend weeks or years there carrying out experiments or technology tests, and then glide back to a runway landing so that they can fly again. The Boeing X-37 of the United States, whose orbital X-37B version has flown a series of long test missions for the Air Force, the Naval Research Laboratory and NASA, is the first such vehicle in this atlas. A vehicle belongs here when its cited source calls it a reusable uncrewed spaceplane or an orbital test vehicle that returns by landing. Satellites that stay in orbit until the end of their lives have other groups in this subcategory, and crewed spaceplanes belong with the crewed spacecraft.