A new era begins

The OTV-1 version of the X-37B lifts off on its maiden voyage atop an Atlas V rocket, ensconced in its fairing, on April 22, 2010. "History was made in December [2010]," Craig Cooning, head of Boeing's Space and Intelligence Systems, said in a statement marking the launch of OTV-2, "when the X-37B became the United States' first unmanned vehicle to return from space and land on its own."