About two weeks after the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs published the first-ever in-orbit image captured by Boeing's X-37 spaceplane, the US Space Force revealed early Friday that the top-secret spaceplane has returned to Earth.

Space Force announced the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7 (OTV-7) "successfully deorbited and landed" at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on early Friday around 0222 local time. 

Images posted on X by the space agency show military personnel in laboratory protective suits, like NBC and/or BSL-4 suits, approaching the X-37 after touchdown at Vandenberg. 

More images were posted on X of the X-37B, which concluded its seventh mission in orbit.

This time, X-37B remained in space for 434 days.

"While on orbit, Mission 7 accomplished a range of test and experimentation objectives intended to demonstrate the X-37 B's robust maneuver capability while helping characterize the space domain through the testing of space domain awareness technology experiments," Space Force wrote in a statement. 

USAF Public Affairs posted this image from X-37B late last month during a series of "experiments in a highly elliptical orbit in 2024."

With each successive top-secret mission, the X-37B spends long and longer time in orbit:

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