The US Space Force’s X-37B spacecraft has completed a 434-day mission and returned to the West Coast.

The Space Force said that the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7 (OTV-7) had successfully de-orbited on March 7, 2025 at 02:22.

Launched on a Falcon Heavy in 2023, the X-37B conducted the second shortest mission in the history of the program, second only to the first flight in 2010.

Early in the morning, the reusable X-37B spacecraft landed at the airfield of the Vandenberg Air Force Base.

This is the first landing of the vehicle on the West Coast since October 2014, ending its seventh mission, which lasted 434 days.

OTV-7 was launched on December 29, 2023, using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The peculiarity of this mission was the use of new maneuvering technologies. The spacecraft operated in a highly elliptical orbit with an inclination of 59.1° and demonstrated the capabilities of aerodynamic braking to change orbit parameters.

Boeing’s vice president of space systems noted that those maneuvers had been made possible by modernizing collision avoidance, fault protection and autonomy systems.

For the first time in the history of the program, the Space Force published a photo taken by the X-37B on February 20, 2025, when the vehicle was at a considerable distance from Earth. The image, transmitted on the day it was released, confirmed the spacecraft’s ability to collect data in deep space.

Despite lasting 434 days, the OTV-7 mission was the shortest in the program’s history. The previous record holder, OTV-6, spent almost 909 days in orbit before landing in Florida in 2022.

The return of the X-37B confirms its role as an important tool for testing advanced technologies, including autonomous systems and methods of operation in different orbits.

The program continues to be an important element of the US space security strategy.