Boeing announced its X-37B space plane, which is owned by the US Air Force, has been in orbit for 781 days, a record on its seventh flight. Its appearance is like a mini space shuttle and it is launched into orbit on top of an Atlas 5 rocket then re-enters the atmosphere then lands like a glider autonomously. Its mission is shrouded in secrecy. It is not weaponized, but many think it is testing future surveillance technologies. No landing date has been announced.

Reporting on last week’s update on NASA’s CAPSTONE mission to the moon, it has successfully completed its Trans-Lunar Injection maneuver, which sends it out of Low Earth Orbit on a ballistic trajectory towards the moon. This is different from a “direct transfer” like previous lunar missions and takes several months to complete. Specifically, the orbit is called near-rectilinear halo orbit. This particular type of orbit has never been used before and such has been selected as a pathfinder, which is the primary mission for CAPSTONE, because it has low “Delta-V”, or change in velocity requirements. Change in velocity requires fuel and fuel increases mass and more mass requires more fuel, which requires a bigger rocket, and so on. CAPSTONE is set to arrive in lunar orbit on November 13th, 2022.