US Military's X-37B Spaceplane Stays Relevant With Launch of Another Mission

upstart writes:

The X-37B spaceplane is flying missions few would have foreseen when the program began:

The US military's reusable winged spaceship rocketed back into orbit Thursday night [August 21, 2025] atop a SpaceX rocket, kicking off a mission that will, among other things, demonstrate how future spacecraft can navigate without relying on GPS signals.

The core of the navigation experiment is what the Space Force calls the "world's highest performing quantum inertial sensor ever used in space."

This is one of many payloads mounted on the military's X-37B spaceplane when it lifted off aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 11:50 pm EDT Thursday (03:50 UTC Friday).

[...] Military leaders tout the X-37B's purpose as a technological testbed that can ferry experiments from Earth to space and back. Many of the spaceplane's payloads have been classified, but officials typically identify a handful of unclassified experiments flying on each X-37B mission. Past X-37B missions have also deployed small satellites into orbit before returning to Earth for a runway landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, or Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

On this mission, the Space Force says the X-37B carries instrumentation to demonstrate quantum navigation, and a laser inter-satellite relay terminal to allow the spaceplane to connect with other spacecraft in orbit.

The quantum sensor package will "inform accurate unaided navigation in space by detecting rotation and acceleration of atoms without reliance on satellite networks like traditional GPS," the Space Force said in a statement before the launch.

[...] Recognizing the importance of GPS signals, the Space Force said the quantum sensor experiment on the X-37B spaceplane will test technology useful for navigation in "GPS-denied environments." Quantum navigation could also help spacecraft navigate in deep space, around the Moon or other planets, where missions can't count on receiving GPS signals.

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