The X-37B will follow the same reentry path the Shuttle follows … it will come in on a gradual horizontal entry path starting half a world away, slowly losing altitude and speed up to about the 50,000 foot level at which time air will be thick enough for winged flight to take over from what is basically a computer-controlled attitude entry with the primary movement made through RCS rockets and not conventional airframe controls such as wings or flaps. The horizontal flight then becomes much more a vertical one, somewhat dropping like a lawn dart so as to maintain the "pre-flare" airspeed as the vehicle (Shuttle or X-37B) has no engines and has to have a lot of "energy" so as to not "stall" like most aircraft without power would do with the engines off. The aim point in this near free-fall is a half mile short of the target threshhold on the runway, and at about 1,000 feet with adequate pre-flare airspeed the craft will pitch the nose up, lower the landing gear, and make a smooth unpowered landing.

The question with the X-37B is not whether automated computers on board and external microwave signals can successfully land the craft. As a matter of fact most Shuttle landings can and are in fact performed without actual pilot control except for when the ego of the humans at the flight station demand physical control, mostly during the "HAC" turns. In the few times pilots actually overrode the computers during Shuttle landings, the result was almost always porpoising and a loss of control that nearly resulted in very bad results. So the question is not whether automated controls – or even controls of robots from some ground trailer can effectively do everything in space that humans are required to do now. The question is just about the ego involved and the costs and expensive overhead for redundancy and safety involved wherever humans fly aboard such craft.

Another poster asked about the lifting body vehicle made almost entirely of composites. It was the X-38 which was the prototype for what NASA had hoped would be the CRV or Crew Return Vehicle. Like the upcoming X-37B launch, the X-38 would have gone up atop a disposable rocket and it was to serve as the Space Station's "Lifeboat" capable of landing 7 (and not the 3 the Russian escape lifeboat is capable of) Astronauts in an emergency. There were really no technical challenges to this program and work was well underway for the first operational model before it was cancelled by NASA as a victim of internal budget priorities. The X-38 was an almost precise replica of the earlier X-23A which did make a conventional landing using Shuttle approaches and deployable landing gear. The X-23A was also a manned vehicle. But X-38 test vehicles were not. They were controlled by a gaming joystick in a NASA trailer, and while in a fall a square chute was deployed to bring the vehicle slowly to a stop on deployable landing skids.

While officially the role of this craft may be to service satellites, reconaisance etc, there is no doubt a huge amount of operational utility data will be studied as well for future designs.
A rather scary thought for any nation is a LEO constellation of these crafts full of cruise missiles. An aggressive orbit change out of radar range could provide near zero warning of an attack and at speeds far above any defensive reaction time.

I can think of quite a few military platforms this item could evolve for.

A little shocking the Russian Government has a problem with defensive missiles in Europe, but hasn't really made a sound about this. Could we be seeing a Russian version soon?

Wasn't there an X-design with lifting body + aerofoil decent designed and tested about a decade ago? It was decomissioned back when Space was not considered economically interesting – much like now, really.

It looked a lot more elegant than this thing.

With its flight range being so long (9 months?) I suspect they can also rig the shuttle itself as a reconnaissance satellite. One with aerobraking and return abilities.

Turning it into a space bomber is not out of the question, but they could do that with the current launch systems easily enough.
Its all based on technology born for nuclear war, after all.

It's not a cheaper, faster, or safer way of getting into space, it's a way for the military to service their satellites without compromising security. I doubt the Shuttle has the slightest bit to do with it…it's always had extremely limited capabilities in terms of the orbits it could reach, and we've been unwilling to use it to even those limits after Colombia, almost abandoning the Hubble telescope because the Shuttle wouldn't have been able to reach the ISS if it needed to following a Hubble service mission.

So overall, I'd be far more interested in the moon probe. It's much more relevant to our future.

The problem is they have a vast fleet of satellites to tend to but do not want to have all their operations covered on the TV news.
The size, cost, and age of the shuttles have made them obsolete and less than ideal for air force work.
What they want is a ship that can go up, run an extended mission, and then return to some nameless airfield with as little attention as possible.

What they have now might be just the thing.
A secretive spacecraft project is being moved from a darpa hanger to the launch pad, and the news media does not seem to give a damn.
If they didn't cross paths with the LRO, even space watchers may not have known the X-37 was going operational until after the fact. We would have just been told it was another "weather satellite".

Discretion is the name of the game, and the Airforce appears to be winning.

Funny tho… Without war against terrorism, USA would have 2 or 3 new shuttles already in operative use… But no, mr Bush had to cancell the whole thing.

Granted, its autonomous. But in light of the space shuttles retirement it sounds a hell of alot more interesting than that lunar probe.