At NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a former space shuttle hangar will now serve as a new home for US Air Force's secret X-37B space plane.

A former NASA space shuttle hangar will serve as the new home and servicing facility for a fleet of secretive military space planes.

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The Boeing Company announced on Friday (Jan. 3) it will beginconverting Orbiter Processing Facility-1 (OPF-1)at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to support the U.S. Air Force X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). Built by Boeing's Phantom Works, the wingedX-37B space planeresembles in some ways a smaller version of NASA's shuttle with a 15-foot (4.5 m.) wingspan.

The move to use OPF-1 will "enable the U.S. Air Force to efficiently land, recover, refurbish, and re-launch" the 29-foot-long (8.8 m.), reusable unmanned spacecraft, Boeing officials said in a statement. [See photos from the X-37B space plane's latest mission]

No other details were released, other than Boeing noting the project will expand its presence in Florida by "adding technology, engineering and support jobs at the Kennedy Space Center."

One of three similar hangars to previously house NASA's orbiters, OPF-1 has been vacant since June 2012, when the space agency's final shuttle to fly into space,Atlantis, departed the building. Built in the late 1970s, OPF-1 has a 29,000-square-foot (2,700 sq.m.) high bay and stands 95 feet (29 m.) tall.

The hangar is the second NASA OPF to be commercially leased under an agreement with Space Florida, the state's spaceport authority and aerospace development agency. In October 2011, Boeing also took over use of OPF-3 to support its CST-100 spacecraft, a crewed capsule being developed to potentially fly NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

That facility, now referred to as the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility, or C3PF, is nearing the end of its conversion to begin manufacturing and testing the five-seat, gumdrop-shaped spacecraft.

Originally posted here:

Kennedy Space Center now home to secret military planes