By Tariq Malik
SPACE.com Managing Editor
posted: 22 April 2010
09:24 am ET
The United States Air Force's novel robotic X-37B space plane is tucked inside the bulbous nose cone of an unmanned rocket and poised for an evening blastoff from Florida tonight on a mission shrouded in secrecy.
The spacecraft, called the Orbital Test Vehicle, is poised to launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket from a seaside pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Liftoff is slated for sometime during a nine-minute window that opens at 7:52 p.m. EDT (2352 GMT).
There's an 80 percent chance of good weather to launch the X-37B space plane. But what it will actually do in space and when it will autonomously fly itself back down to Earth remain a mystery.
