"Potential weapon against Russia" returned to Earth a year later

The classified US military spaceplane Boeing X-37Bi returned to Earth after 14 months.

The Pentagon said that the orbital flight of the object was designed to "improve the knowledge of the US Space Forces about the space environment," which is critically important "in an increasingly congested and contested space."

The Boeing X-37Bi is a hybrid of an airplane and a spacecraft nine meters long, with a wingspan of 4.5 meters and a take-off weight of about five tons. The structure is powered by solar panels. The spaceplane was launched on December 29, 2023 from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Russia has repeatedly criticized this spaceplane as a potential weapon. So, in 2021, the head of the Almaz-Antey arms concern, Jan Novikov, clarified that the Boeing X-37Bi can carry up to six nuclear warheads. And in 2022, Dmitry Rogozin, at that time the head of Roscosmos, stressed that the X-37 could be a carrier of weapons of mass destruction, warning of the "danger of an attack from outer space."