Pilot-less Orbiter Set to Launch in Florida, Land in California...Sometime

The Air Force's Boeing-made X-37B spaceship is poised to launch Thursday night aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

The scheduled 7:52 p.m. liftoff, without an astronaut on board, will send the craft into orbit from Cape Canaveral.

When it makes its return landing at Vendenberg Air Force Base in California is still to be determined, but officials say it will be within nine months, since X-37B is designed to remain in space for up to 270 days.

The Air Force says the X-37B has the capability to turn around flights in days, not the three to four months required by NASA's shuttles.

It's also far smaller: 29 feet long vs. the 122-foot shuttle. Cost of the vehicle, built by Boeing's secretive Phantom Works, is classified.

This vehicle has the potential to become United States' first operational military spaceplane, after the cancellation of Dyna-Soar in 1963.

The X-37B is equipped with a flight termination system enabling officers on the ground to destroy the craft if it flies off course. Developers downplay that doomsday scenario, noting that the craft has been undergoing "drop" flight tests since April 7, 2006.