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Watch The Secret Space Plane Land In Florida

Sonic booms surprised residents across central Florida  Sunday morning due to the landing of a top-secret military space plane at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

The X-37B is a classified, un-crewed Air Force space plane that touched down at Kennedy Space Center's shuttle landing facility. Not much is known about the 29 foot long robotic spacecraft, its space missions or what it delivered into space.

It was the fourth mission of the X-37B, and the longest. The spacecraft launched back in 2015, tallying more than 700 days in orbit.

The X-37B launches on top of a rocket and returns to earth like the space shuttles did by gliding back to a runway. The space plane's development began in 1999. The first Air Force version of the space plane launch in 2010.

Watch a video, made public by the U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs, of the space plane's landing with no crew aboard.

https://youtu.be/l9MAjzDy8Hw

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The U.S. Air Force X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle 4 landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida May 7, 2017.
U.S. Air Force /
The U.S. Air Force X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle 4 landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida May 7, 2017.

Bobbie O’Brien has been a Reporter/Producer at WUSF since 1991. She reports on general news topics in Florida and the Tampa Bay region.