Overview

• The uncrewed Boeing-built spaceplane lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A at 11:50 p.m. ET on Aug. 21, marking mission OTV-8 (USSF-36).
• Boeing reports the spacecraft is healthy on orbit and proceeding through routine checkout procedures.
• Experiments include optical inter-satellite laser communications with proliferated commercial low-Earth-orbit networks and what the Space Force calls the highest-performing quantum inertial sensor yet flown.
• An integrated Boeing service module increases payload capacity for on-orbit experimentation during this flight.
• The launch comes less than six months after OTV-7’s March 7 landing, which followed a high-altitude mission that demonstrated a first-of-its-kind aerobraking maneuver.