A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off Thursday evening to launch the US military’s X-37B space drone on a research mission, the US company founded by Elon Musk said, AFP reported.

Secret US space drone X-37BPhoto: Staff Sergeant Adam Shanks/US Space Force/Boeing/SWNS/SWNS/Profimedia

After weeks of delays, the rocket lifted off at 8:07 p.m. local time (01:07 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch was broadcast live on the SpaceX website.

There is no word on the destination of the space drone, an unmanned shuttle on its seventh mission.

The Pentagon has released little information about the space drone and its new mission, which was originally scheduled to begin on December 7.

SpaceX only mentioned the Pentagon’s code name for this mission – USSF-52 – in the launch release. “Falcon Heavy launched the USSF-52 mission into orbit from Launch Pad 39A,” SpaceX said.

The Pentagon previously announced that the X-37B’s seventh mission would include “several state-of-the-art experiments.”

“These tests include operating the reusable spacecraft in new orbital modes, testing future space awareness technologies and studying the effects of radiation on NASA-provided materials,” the US Air Force’s Rapid Capability Office said in a statement last month.

The press release notes that this was the first time the X-37B was launched by the Falcon Heavy rocket, one of the most powerful rockets in operation, capable of carrying a payload of up to 26,700 kilograms into space.

The top-secret X-37B made its first flight in 2010 and spent a total of more than a decade in space during its first six missions, its developer, the U.S. aircraft, said at the end of its sixth mission in November 2022. manufacturer Boeing.

The X-37B was developed for the United States Air Force by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin in which both companies have equal ownership.

The space drone is nine meters long, has a wingspan of 4.5 meters and is powered by solar batteries.

Its Falcon Heavy rocket launch came two weeks after China put its own space drone, called the Shenlong, into orbit on Dec. 14 for a “period of time,” according to China News Agency. to be carried out with the aim of “providing technical support for the peaceful use of space” (Agerpres).