Secret space mission over

THE US military’s experimental X-37B space plane has landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, completing a classified mission that lasted nearly two years, the Air Force says.

The unmanned X-37B, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, touched down on Sunday morning on a runway formerly used for landings of the now-mothballed space shuttles.

The Boeing-built space plane blasted off in May 2015 from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.

The X-37B, one of two in the Air Force fleet, conducted unspecified experiments for more than 700 days while in orbit. It was the fourth and lengthiest mission so far for the program.