X-37B OTV 8 and Limasat (the USSF-36 payloads) imaged

 

This morning (early 24 August 2025) weather finally cooperated and I managed to observe both of the USSF-36 payloads, two days after launch: the X-37B Spaceplane OTV 8 (2025-183A) and  LIMASAT (2025-183B). Limasat was about half a minute in front of OTV 8.

Above is footage from this pass, showing both objects. The footage was obtained from my home in Leiden, the Netherlands, using a WATEC 902H2 Supreme camera with a Samyang 1.4/85 mm lens filming at 25 frames/second. This was an early twilight pass low in the south-southwest (27 degrees maximum elevation).

Below are framestacks from parts of the footage (both framestacks are 51-frame stacks):

Limasat (stack of 51 frames)

 

X-37B OTV 8 (stack of 51 frames)

 

Current observations show OTV 8 in a 331 x 342 km, 49.5 degree inclined orbit. Limasat is in a 330 x 341 km, 49.5 degree inclined orbit. Limasat was probably carried piggyback on the X-37B Service Module before being released.

X-37B Spaceplane mission OTV 8 located on orbit

OTV 8 imaged by Kevin Fetter 5 hours after launch. Image (c) Kevin Fetter, used with permission

OTV 8, the 8th mission of the US Space Force's X-37B Spaceplane, launched on 22 August 2025 at 03:50 UTC. It has been catalogued as 2025-183A (cat. nr. 65271) under the name of  'USA 555', along with a second payload, called LIMASAT (2025-183B, 65272). The latter has probably been dispensed from the OTV 8 service module.

Five hours after launch, Kevin Fetter managed to observe OTV 8. Above is one of his images, showing OTV 8 as a short bright trail in a partly cloudy sky. 

A preliminary orbit fit suggests that OTV 8 is in a 327 x 334 km, 49.5 degree inclined orbit [update 25 Aug 2025: the latest improved orbit update shows it in a 331 x 342 km, 49.5 degree inclined orbit]: a slightly (~20 km) lower orbital altitude than my initial pre-launch guess but otherwise a quite comparable orbit.

Click image to enlarge

 

An overview of the OTV missions so far: 

MISSION  ORBITER  LAUNCH   INCL   ORBIT   DURATION
--------------------------------------------------
OTV 1    I        2010     40.0   LEO     224 days
OTV 2    II       2011     42.8   LEO     468 days
OTV 3    I        2012     43.5   LEO     674 days
OTV 4    II       2015     38.0   LEO     717 days
OTV 5    II       2017     54.5   LEO     780 days
OTV 6    I        2020     45.0   LEO     909 days
OTV 7    II       2023     59.1   HEO     435 days
OTV 8    I        2025     49.5   LEO         tbd
--------------------------------------------------

Bad weather in the Netherlands has so far precluded me from trying to observe the latest launch.
 

EDIT (24 August 2025): 

I imaged both the USSF-36 payloads (OTV 8 and Limasat) in the early morning of 24 August, see this follow-up blogpost with footage. 

The upcoming launch of the X-37B Spaceplane mission OTV 8

X-37B mission OTV 6 after landing (Image: US Air Force)

Navigational Warnings have appeared for OTV 8, the 8th launch of the secretive X-37B spaceplane by the US Space Force (launch USSF-36). The launch, on a SpaceX Falcon 9, will be from Cape Canaveral launch pad 39A. The window of the Navigational Warning runs from 22 to 28 August 2025, with a time window of 08:30 - 10:30 UTC 03:40 - 08:03 UTC for August 22 (August 21 local date in Florida). There is something odd with these times by the way, on which more later.

Navigational Warnings NAVAREA IV 877/25 and HYDROPAC 2096/25 define two hazard zones. One is the immediate launch hazard zone on the Florida coast. The other is the deorbit area for the Falcon 9 upper stage, in the Eastern Pacific, near the end of the first revolution. 

While the direction of the first hazard zone on the Florida coast suggests a 42 degree inclined orbit, the location and direction of the Falcon 9 upper stage deorbit area is incompatible with this. Rather, it fits a 49.5 degree inclined orbit. The location and the time difference of the deorbit window start compared to that for the launch area, strongly point to launch into a Low Earth Orbit, with an orbital altitude likely near 350-400 km, just like the first six missions (remember that mission OTV 7 surprisingly was sent into a Highly Elliptical Orbit, see several previous posts, e.g. here).

I have plotted the two hazard zones and a launch trajectory for a 49.5 degree inclined, ~350 km altitude orbit in the map below. Numbers next to the trajectory refer to the flight time in minutes after launch:

 

Click map to enlarge

 

Below are the two Navigational Warnings:

142327Z AUG 25
NAVAREA IV 877/25(11).
NORTH ATLANTIC.
FLORIDA.
1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS, ROCKET LAUNCHING 
   220340Z TO 220803Z AUG, ALTERNATE
   230400Z TO 230823Z, 240420Z TO 240843Z,
   250440Z TO 250728Z, 260500Z TO 260748Z,
   270345Z TO 270808Z AND 280540Z TO 280833Z AUG
   IN AREA BOUND BY
   28-40.25N 080-38.57W, 28-50.00N 080-22.00W,
   28-39.00N 080-11.00W, 28-27.24N 080-31.58W.
2. CANCEL THIS MSG 280933Z AUG 25.


141931Z AUG 25
HYDROPAC 2096/25(83).
PACIFIC OCEAN.
DNC 06, DNC 13.
1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS, SPACE DEBRIS
   220500Z TO 220911Z, 230520Z TO 230931Z,
   240540Z TO 240951Z, 250600Z TO 250836Z,
   260620Z TO 260856Z, 270505Z TO 270916Z
   AND 280700Z TO 280941Z AUG 
   IN AREA BOUND BY
   09-55.00N 120-25.00W, 10-41.00N 121-25.00W,
   07-44.00S 135-45.00W, 08-30.00S 134-45.00W.
2. CANCEL THIS MSG 281041Z AUG 25.

Note the shift in launch time with date: 03:40 - 08:03 UTC for the 22nd, 04:00 - 08:23 UTC for the 23rd, etcetera: a shift forward in time of 20 minutes per day. [edit: as noted by Ted Molczan, the times next suddenly shift to - nearly - the initial times again by August 27. I still cannot make sense of it]

The direction of this shift is odd. It is forward, to a later time each day: if a particular orbital plane is aimed for, it should however shift backwards, to an earlier time, each day. I wonder if this is a mistake and someone added corrections into the wrong direction...

The X-37B spaceplane (there are actually two of them) is the subject of a lot of conjecture and wild tales. My interpretation is that it is a technology testbed, not some space weapon such as the Russians and Chinese would have it. 

The rumoured "high manoeuverability" is often misunderstood: in flight, the X-37B does not change its orbital plane (see this earlier post from 2019). It does change orbital altitude frequently, and during the last mission (OTV 7) into HEO, it used Aerobraking (briefly dipping into the upper atmosphere during perigee) near the end of its mission to reduce orbital speed and altitude in preparation for landing. It manoeuvered almost daily during that mission. However, and I want to re-emphasize this as it is a common misunderstanding, it does not swirl and manoeuver like an X-wing Starfighter or Tie-fighter, changing orbital plane at will. In many ways, on-orbit it is just another satellite, moving in a fixed orbital plane (this is how we trackers find it back after an orbit raising or lowering manoeuver: we do a plane scan). The wings only function in the atmosphere, not in space.

According to this Space Force bulletin, mission OTV 8 will experiment with laser communications with "proliferated commercial satellite networks in Low Earth Orbit" (read: Starlink). It will also test a new navigation device, a "quantum inertial sensor" which works by "detecting rotation and acceleration of atoms without reliance on satellite networks like traditional GPS". This experimental technique is important to be able to continue navigating in space when GPS is being jammed/spoofed, and will become an important means of navigation in XGEO (CisLunar Space) in the future.

X-37B Spaceplane OTV 7 to lower orbit by aerobraking

X-37B OTV 7 near apogee  imaged by the author on 3 October 2024. Click to enlarge

It looks like the time on orbit is about to end for mission OTV 7 of the enigmatic US Space Force X-37B spaceplane (2023-210A). Launched on 29 December 2023, it went into an unusual Highly Elliptical Orbit with apogee near 38 600 km and perigee near 300 km and an orbital inclination of 59 degrees (see various earlier blogposts).

On October 10, the US Space Force announced that OTV 7 "will begin executing a series of novel maneuvers, called aerobraking, to change its orbit around Earth and safely dispose of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation"

I already wrote earlier, e.g. in this blogpost from February, that the mission likely would end by using aerobraking in perigee to lower apogee, circularize in a Low Earth Orbit, and then land. 

Aerobraking is a technique where, by a manoeuver in apogee, the perigee altitude of the orbit is lowered such that it is in the top of the atmosphere: not low enough to make it reenter, but enough to significantly slow it down. When the spacecraft goes through perigee in that situation, it experiences enhanced drag, that will result in drastically lowering the apogee of the orbit, certainly after a few of such perigee passages. 

This will bring the orbit down and eventually change the Highly Elliptical Orbit character into a Low Earth Orbit. Orbital velocity near perigee (over 10 km/s while in a Highly Elliptical orbit with apogee near 39 000 km) will be drastically reduced (to 6.8 km/s) by this, allowing the vehicle to reenter the atmosphere and land without experiencing too excessive forces during reentry.

It looks like the process of lowering perigee might already have started around October 4, when for the first time perigee (while earlier just above 300 km) seems to drop below 300 km:

OTV 7 apogee and perigee altitudes over time. NOTE: logarithmic Y-axis! Click to enlarge

This is difficult to say for certain, as frequent larger and smaller manoeuvers by OTV 7 (it seems to have manoeuvered daily, as it never was on the ephemerids during a next observation) combined with a sketchy observational coverage (most of the observations from the last two months have been done by me, with some by Tomi Simola), means that orbit determinations are not always that easy and it is not clear how real the minor variations in perigee altitude from orbit determination to orbit determination are.

The wording of the US Space Force news item is such, that it seems to suggest that after apogee lowering and orbit circularization through aerobraking, OTV 7 might for a while continue its mission in a lower (Low Earth) orbit, as they write:

"Once the aerobrake maneuver is complete, the X-37B will resume its test and experimentation objectives until they are accomplished, at which time the vehicle will de-orbit and execute a safe return as it has during its six previous missions".

So rather than land directly after the aerobraking sequence is finished, it might stay on orbit for days, weeks or months, in an orbit that is more like those of previous X-37B missions.

Over the past two months, perigee has been kept on the equator (argument of perigee kept near 180 degrees). That is a situation where during a perigee pass, there is the possibility to change the orbital inclination. So it is possible that near the end of the aerobraking sequence, the orbital inclination (currently 59 degrees) will be changed to a lower value, e.g. around 40 degrees as with previous X-37B missions in LEO.

As an interesting aside, the US Space Force bulltein also mentions that mission OTV 7 in its unusual HEO orbit "has conducted radiation effect experiments and has been testing Space Domain Awareness technologies in a Highly Elliptical Orbit".

X-37B spaceplane. Image: US Space Force

More X-37B spaceplane OTV 7 observations

OTV 7 imaged on August 11. Click image to enlarge

In a previous blogpost I wrote about recovering the X-37B Spaceplane OTV 7 (2023-210A) on July 30. I have now observed it a couple of times, at intervals of a few days due to a combion of weather conditions and favourable or less-favourable pass times. Above is an image from August 11. The diagram below shows where it was in its orbital position at that time, coming down from apogee:

click image to enlarge

 

Between mid-March and end-of-July, OTV 7 had brought down its apogee by a few thousand kilometers. Since recovery on July 30, it is continuously making smaller manoeuvers as well (currently, it seems to make small orbit raising manoeuvers adjusting both apogee and perigee). As a result, it is invariably off predictions (usually being a bit 'late') and a small plane scan is necessary to recover it. Having a wide-field instrument (the FOV of the instrument I currently use, an ASI 6200 MM PRO with 1.2/85 mm lens, is 24 x 16 degrees) is useful in this aspect.

The brightness of OTV 7 strongly depends on where it is located in its orbit during observation (as well as, of course, phase angle and condition of the local sky). When it is in or near apogee, it is fainter and the trail is short.

When following the object over (a part of) a pass, the brightness and apparent angular rate of movement (trail length) notably changes. How clearly it can be seen in the imagery is complex interaction of actual brightness, apparent angular movement (when it moves faster, each image pixel is illuminated less), range to the observer and phase angle.

Below are two images from the night of August 14-15, some 3 hours after OTV 7 passed apogee. The second of these images shows OTV 7 not far from M31, the Andromeda galaxy. Even though the two images are not at the same image scale (the one with M31 is reduced in size, to show a wider FOV), the difference in trail length after a mere half an hour can already be seen (both images are 10-second exposures with a ZWO ASI 6200 MM PRO and Samyang 1.2/85 mm lens).

Recovery of the X-37B spaceplane OTV 7

click to enlarge

 

The classified US Space Force X-37B spaceplane OTV 7 (2023-210A) was launched on 29 December 2023, in an unusual Highly Elliptical Orbit. Five weeks after launch, in the first week of February 2024, it was found on-orbit by Tomi Simola from Finland in a 38600 x 300 km, 59.15 degree inclined orbit (see this earlier blogpost). We followed it for a month and then lost it: the last observation was on March 15.

But now it has been recovered! On the night of July 30-31, I was imaging geosynchronous objects when I noted a short trail made by an unidentified interlooper.  Mike McCants identified the UNID as OTV 7.

The image in top of this post (one out of four images spanning half an hour) shows the short faint trail created by OTV 7. The ~9 by 4.5 meters large X-37B spaceplane was near apogee of its orbit at that time, at about 35535 km altitude (and a range of some 38775 km to my observing location). The image is a 10-second exposure with a ZWO ASI 6200 MM PRO and Samyang 1.2/85 mm lens, and shows only a small part of the original image. It was taken from Leiden, the Netherlands.

Weather next initially conspired against me, but last night, August 3-4, I again observed it, some 25 minutes late on the initial elset estimate. This is a small part of one of the images, shsowing the faint trail created by OTV 7:

click image to enlarge

The observing conditions were very dynamic this time: after rainshowers, small but bright, stamp-sized clearings were sometimes present in the clpud cover. I managed to image the object through such gaps in the cloud cover a few times over an half-an-hour-period, 25 minutes late on the preliminary orbit. 

Below is an example of what I am talking about when I say "stamp-sized clearings": this is the last image (reduced in size as the true image is 9576 x 6388 pixels) on which I could find it. All the white is clouds....:

click to enlarge

The new observations constrain the orbit a little bit better: 314 x 35552 km, 59.15 degree inclined. A provisional elset:

OTV 7
1 58666U 23210A   24216.90625742 0.00000000  00000-0  00000+0 0    01
2 58666  59.1511 329.1636 7247171 178.5736 186.3429  2.29027449    03

rms 0.004 deg   from 9 obs, arc July 30.96 - Aug 3.96 UTC

Below is a comparison between the (forward propagated) orbit from March (red), and the current orbit (white). Apogee is some 2300 km lower than it was in March (and this is not due to natural orbital decay, but due to manoeuvering). The orbital plane itself is still similar.

click image to enlarge

The Chinese robotic Space Plane 3 and Object G: proximity operations [MULTIPLE UPDATES]

(blogpost updated on June 6, June 14, June 17 and June 23, 2024. Last update at bottom)

 

The video above shows 2023-195A, the third mission of China's experimental spaceplane (aka "PRC Test Spacecraft", aka "Reusable Test Vehicle") and "Object G" (2023-195G), an object it ejected late May 2024. 

The video was taken  from Leiden, the Netherlands, in evening twilight of June 8, 2024, using a WATEC 902H2 Supreme camera and Samyang 1.2/85 mm lens. 

Object G is the faint object in front, the brighter object is the Space Plane.

I had also observed both objects a day earlier, on the evening of June 7, in deep twilight. Below is a frame stack from that June 7 observation: object G is the fainter of the two streaks and was just in front of the Spaceplane:

Object G was first catalogued on May 25. My analysis shows that it was ejected from the Spaceplane on May 24 near 18:40 UTC, during a pass over China. 

Directly after ejecting it, the spaceplane made a manoeuver, raising its orbit by about 1 kilometer. This likely was an avoidance manoeuver, i.e. a manoeuver to avoid hitting the object it just ejected.

In the first few days after ejection, the 18th STS appears to have  confused both objects: orbital data for object G and the spaceplane between epoch 24146.6 and 24148.9 have been switched, and what is labelled as "PRC Test Spacecraft 3" in the catalogue during this period is actually Object G, and vice versa.

Below are two diagram of the apogee and perigee evolution for both objects: one "as is" following the catalogue identities: and a second one where I have corrected the identities of both objects during the period they were switched:

click diagram to enlarge

click diagram to enlarge

Looking at the orbital behaviour of both objects, it appears that Object G does not noticably manoeuver. Its parent the spaceplane did: between June 5 and June 7, starting eleven days after it ejected Object G, the space plane made a series of (phasing) manoeuvers, as can be seen in the diagram above. It first lowered its orbit, and then raised it again a day later. The result is an orbit at similar altitude and orbital period as Object G, but slightly more eccentric.

Another effect of those manoeuvers was that it brought the spaceplane and Object G in close spatial proximity again, with a separation of only a few kilometers (as can be seen in the video imagery in top of the post, taken when both objects were some 7-8 km apart). It is possible that the spaceplane did briefly retrieve Object G or attempted to do so, and then let it go again, but this cannot be unequivocally confirmed from the orbital data. Some combinations of the orbital data for epoch 24160 do suggest that a potential very close approach at kilometer level or even less might have happened on 8 June near 14-15h UTC. The rapid manoeuvering evident from the clear orbital changes in successive elsets from June 8-9 makes it however difficult to validate true distances and exact times involved.

It is clear however that between June 5 and 7, the spaceplane manoeuvered with the intent to do a proximity operation with Object G on June 8, bringing the two objects to within a few kilometers of each other.

It will be interesting to see whether or not the spaceplane will periodically adjust its orbit to remain in the vicinity of Object G. [see update at bottom of post!]

The spaceplane was launched from Jiuquan with a Long March 2F rocket on 14 December 2023, initially into a 348 x 332 km, 50.0 degree inclined orbit. On January 5, it made a small orbit raise to 359 x 331 km. On 19 January 2024, it significantly raised its orbit to 597 x 334 km. On 26 January 2024, it circularized its orbit to 609 x 602 km (see diagram of orbital evolution below). On May 24, it spawned Object G.

click diagram to enlarge

 

The spacecraft is a robotic spaceplane capable of landing on a runway after deorbit, and China's answer to the US X-37B OTV spaceplane. It is launched on a rocket from Jiuquan, and after spending time on orbit, it lands again on a 5-km long runway near Lop Nur in the Taklamakan desert (see Sentinel satellite image below). 

 

Lop Nur runway (Sentinel 2B image). Click to enlarge

The current mission is the third mission of this type of spacecraft: it did a short 2-day mission in August September 2020, and a much longer 276-day mission between August 2022 and May 2023. The current mission has been on-orbit for 181 days (status June 12, 2024).

 

UPDATE 14 June 2024

On June 11 near 9 UTC and June 12 near 10 UTC, the spaceplane again made phasing manoeuvers, followed by a series of smaller orbit adjustments that have now brought apogee and perigee altitudes (and with that eccentricity and orbital period) very close to those for Object G.

The June 11 and 12 manoeuvers caused another very close approach (to a km or less), i.e. another proximity operation, between the spaceplane and Object G on June 12 near 13 UTC.

click diagram to enlarge

UPDATE 17 June 2024

The spaceplane keeps manoeuvering for new proximity operations with object G. A new close approach (a kilometer or less) was made on June 14 near 10:08 UTC, a next one might have happened on June 16 near 5:40 UTC, and another one might occur within hours of posting this update, on June 17 near 13:12 UTC.

 

click diagram to enlarge

UPDATE 23 June 2024

While the dates are generally reliable, the exact approach times I earlier listed might on hindsight not always be that accurate (hence why I crossed them out in this post update). The spaceplane likely frequently made orbit adjustments, and not all of those are well captured by the available tracking data. The approach times calculated depend clearly on which set of orbits you take, even for epochs close together in time.

The orbital periods of both objects - spaceplane and object G - are now very similar, and as a result they stay in each others vicinity, at a general distance of about 100 km at the time of writing (June 23), a distance which is very slowly increasing over time. The spaceplane's orbit is slightly more eccentric than that of object G.

click diagram to enlarge

 

There is an interesting pattern in the inclination of the object G orbit data, but I am not certain whether it is real or an artefact. There are minute  'jumps' in the inclination of object G that appear to coincide with dates of close approaches by the spaceplane. Given the earlier initial confusion between the object A and G identities, I remain cautious on whether or not these are significant.

X-37B OTV 7 has been found in HEO!

 

OTV 7 discovery image by Tomi Simola, Finland  ((c) Tomi Simola, used with permission)

On 29 December 2023 at 1:17 UTC, after several delays, SpaceX launched a Falcon Heavy for the US Space Force with OTV 7, the seventh X-37B Spaceplane mission. Now its payload has been found!

OTV 7 was the subject of much speculation. The use of a Falcon Heavy, and the locations and time windows of related rocket stage splash-down and reentry zones, as well as statements by the US Space Force, indicated it might go into a different, higher altitude orbit than the previous six missions. On this blog, I speculated about a ~74-degree inclined Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO).

Thanks to the dedicated efforts of Tomi Simola from Finland, OTV 7 has been found on-orbit this week. It is indeed in a HEO orbit, but inclined by 59.1 degrees, not 74 degrees.

Tomi performed a dedicated plane scan using a fixed staring camera. On the night of 7-8 February, he finally nabbed the elusive payload (see the discovery image above), while it was at ~3400 km altitude descending towards perigee. He used a WATEC 902H2 Ultimate camera with a 1.2/50 mm lens and 10 seconds integration.

Subsequent observations show that OTV-7 is in a 38840 x 323 km, 59.1 degree inclined Highly Elliptical Orbit. Perigee is just North of the equatorial region (currently clearly North of it near latitude 30 N, but short after launch it was at a lower latitude near 15 N).

(a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) is an orbit with a low perigee - generally at a few hundred km altitude -  and distant apogee, at 35 000 km altitude or more. As a result, the shape of the orbit is highly elliptical (highly elongated). An object in HEO typically makes two orbital revolutions a day. Due to the shape of its orbit, it spents most of its time in the higher parts of the orbit and a relatively small amount of time near perigee. When apogee is over high latitudes, as is usually the case for these orbits, this allows a long dwell-time over these latitudes with view of a very large area (a full hemisphere when in apogee). HEO orbits are hence the polar equivalents of a GeoSynchronous Orbit (GEO) and often used for communications relay or long-term monitoring of areas. They are a favoured orbit for Communications, SIGINT and Infra-Red missile launch monitoring. The OTV 7 HEO is unusual in that perigee is not over the southern hemisphere).

 

orbit of X-37B OTV-7 as of 10 Feb 2024. Click to enlarge

The observed orbital plane of the object matches well with a launch from Cape Canaveral on 29 December 1:07 UTC. Together with the fact that the orbit is quite unusual for a HEO object with it's Northern hemishere perigee location, an identification with OTV 7 is very likely.

Propagating the orbit backwards, the suggestion is that, after initial launch into a 51.5 degree inclined low coasting orbit, it was pushed into HEO by a manoeuvre when crossing the descending node, about half a revolution after launch. It subsequently probably manoeuvered a couple of times, adjusting apogee and perhaps also inclination. 

The upper stage probably did a second manoeuvre after payload separation, changing its inclination to 74 degrees as suggested by the shape, orientation and location of the deorbit area from the Navigational Warnings related to the launch.

click map to enlarge

The map above plots the current orbit of OTV 7 propagated back to the day of launch, as well as the estimated initial low coasting orbit.

As can be seen, the OTV 7 orbit after one revolution actually does cross over the deorbit area from the Navigational Warnings: but in an oblique way that does not seem to match the orientation of the area. This is why I believe that the upper stage after payload separation was boosted into a higher inclined orbit. Perhaps as a collision avoidance manoeuvre (but the implied magnitude of the inclination change, 15 degrees, is rather large), perhaps - but that is pure speculation - it might have delivered a second payload to a higher inclination.

Because their orbital inclinations are about half a degree apart, I did look into a possible relation with another odd object launched into an odd orbit recently: USA 310. Their orbits are quite dissimilar though: USA 310 is in a circular MEO orbit inclined by 58.5 degrees, not a HEO orbit. I do note that their orbital planes, even though quite dissimilar, are 90 degrees apart. But most likely, that is coincidence.

click to enlarge

It will be interesting to follow OTV 7, and see whether it changes orbital altitude as often as the missions to LEO did (see this post from a few years ago).

A re-usable space-plane in HEO: who had that in the cards for 2024....?!

Let's see if they can get it back at some point.