WHAT IS THE X37B?

The X-37B, also known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2, is a: "mysterious unmanned craft that was built by Boeing Co.'s Space and Intelligence Systems unit in Huntington Beach. It is a 29-foot space plane that is the second of its kind, and has been circling the Earth since its launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida earlier this year."

"The Air Force has said that the X-37B is used to test new technologies in space, but some industry analysts believe that it is a test unit for a potential orbiting weapon, which could disable foreign satellites or drop bombs as it makes its way around the Earth. The X-37B was supposed to land 270 days after launch, but the Air Force is extending the space plane's mission with no exact landing date in sight."

(NASA photo from Wired)

"Whatever it’s up to, the X-37B will be doing it longer than anyone imagined when the diminutive spacecraft launched atop an Atlas rocket for the first time in April last year. The Air Force said last year that the X-37B could last nine months in orbit before its power and fuel ran out. (In comparison, the longest manned shuttle mission lasted just 17 days.) In October, Air Force program manager Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre said an extension might be possible. Now it appears the Air Force is taking it day by day, carefully monitoring the X-37B “as it sips power and fuel like a Prius,” in the words of one source involved in the development of military spacecraft."

Depiction of interior at MSNBC