The National Aeronautic Association awarded the Boeing X-37B the 2019 Robert J. Collier Trophy.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Air Force’s autonomous space measure X-37B has won the 2019 Collier Trophy, awarded annually by the National Aeronautic Association for American Performance in Aerospace, the NAA announced Aug. 13.
The X-37B was one of nine nominees to include NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Flatolaunch carrier aircraft. The NAA said the X-37B won for “developing and using the only reusable, autonomous space plan in the world, which spent more than 2,865 days in orbit across five missions, changing access to space and serving as the nation’s working dog in space experimentation and technology. “
The reusable space plan is sent to low Earth orbit for long missions that can last up to two years. The Air Force operates two X-37B spacecraft manufactured by Boeing.
The space plan is a derivative of the X-37A designed by NASA in the late 1990s to deploy the spacecraft. The program was later transferred to the Department of Defense and is now managed by the Air Force’s Office of Rapid Capabilities.
Originally designed for 270-day missions, the X-37B has set endurance records during each of its five completed flights. The first mission launched in 2010.. In 2019, the space plan broke its own endurance record on orbit by 718 days.
The sixth mission of the X-37B spacecraft will take off on May 17, 2020, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Randall Walden, director and program executive officer of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, said the service plans to continue supporting the X-37B program. “Right now, we intend to maintain it,” he said on Aug. 13 during a Mitchell Institute webinar. “There’s a lot of interest in reusable space cars.”
“The Collier Trophy celebrates the record-setting mission of the X-37B,” Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett said in a statement. “The X-37B advances reusable space planetary technologies and serves experiments in space that will be returned for further exploration on Earth.”
