"In the early hours of Dec. 3, 2010, the X-37B became the first U.S. space vehicle to make an autonomous runway landing from orbit." I find this snippet far more interesting than the speculation about what the mission was about. Maybe I don't even want to know what it was doing, but it's good to see that the military is still pushing technology development. Also see: autonomous drones.

The soviet shuttle imitation did this in its only flight back in 1988:

The automated landing took place on a runway at Baikonur Cosmodrome where, despite a lateral wind speed of 61.2 kilometres per hour (38.0 mph), it landed only 3 metres (9.8 ft) laterally and 10 metres (33 ft) longitudinally from the target mark.[4] The unmanned flight was the first time that a spacecraft of this size and complexity had been launched, completed maneuvers in orbit, re-entered the atmosphere, and landed under automatic guidance.

If the figures are true and not just Soviet propaganda, that's one amazing automated landing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)#Flight_into_...

The captions only show up when you hover over the images :/

Thanks for the tip! It's unlikely that I would have discovered the captions without this comment...

The Register has had some really good coverage of this plane over the past year:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/x37b_secret_launch_o...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/04/x37b_ski/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/07/2nd_x37b_in_orbit/

I got excited by the title, as I misunderstood it to mean that we would actually see the images the drone took (the photos of the drone are still interesting though).

Sorry about that, edited the title. Neat toy, though.

Really curious as to what their mission was/is.

Ostensibly it's a versatile spy drone, but kind of makes you wonder when you see the guys in hazmat suits.

Edit: It makes sense if the drone uses hydrazine or other toxic propellants though.

Yes, it's nothing out of the ordinary. After the shuttle lands personnel in similar suits can be seen with similar sensor wands going over the shuttle.

You can really see how tiny that thing is in the last two photos. I've never seen a photo of the Space Shuttle next to anything I can relate to, so I was amazed how enormous it was on a visit to the Houston Space Center. The only relevant photo I can find puts it atop a 747: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atlantis_on_Shuttle_Carrie...

NASA has a lot of really good pictures up on their site actually.

Here's a front on shot of Discovery. It has some people in it, which are great for scale: http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/imageviewer.cfm?mediaid=510...

It's curious how shuttle-like it looks; without a crew to accomodate it could be literally any shape you wanted, subject to aerodynamic considerations. Reusing the design or scaled prototype for a next generation manned craft?

I can't remember where I read it (it may have been Wikipedia) but the shape X-37 was based on the shuttle which is why it's the current craft that's being developed by the military. There was another craft prototyped but it was too costly and time consuming to test out a completely new shape.

The shuttle was always a huge waste of money. Reusable vehicles can't compete with simpler single-use type vehicles.

The Russians built their own reusable shuttle, then scrapped it early on. It's hard to compete with the Soyuz because it's simple and it works.

The shuttle was only ever built because of massive military funding for toys and wargames: http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm