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X-37 Flies Free...Finally!

April 7, 2006 - Everything finally came together this morning (but only after a delay while ATC gave the flight a hard time about wanting a specific altitude for the drop, causing WK to have to come back with bingo fuel) and the Boeing/DARPA* X-37 performed its first ever free-flight this morning. The X-37 reportedly was dropped from about 37,000 feet, glided autonomously. On landing, it reportedly tracked centerline at Edwards AFB but then experienced an "anomaly" and ran off the runway, according to a DARPA spokeswoman quoted on MSNBC. Space.com quotes the spokeswoman as saying "ALTV’s autonomous landing sequence and initial touch-down were flawless and fully according to plan, but ALTV did not stop in the distance expected and rolled off the end of the runway. ALTV’s steering was nominal for the full length of the runway. All flight data has been recovered from ALTV. There was minor damage to ALTV—the nose landing gear is heavily damaged but the main landing gear and aircraft appear structurally intact." Because the landing was at Edwards landing, I was only able to shoot Scaled Composites' White Knight as it returned to Mojave. One of the few times that coming home empty-handed is a good thing!