Like a Google Earth on Serious Cold War Steroids

Plot for the new James Bond movie:

The U.S. government's ultra-secret space plane orbits the globe for 486 days, filming North Korean missile bases, Iranian nuclear installations, Russian troop movements, and Chinese aircraft carrier facilities.

The unmanned plane, designated as X-37B, is controlled by Air Force operators from a high-security bunker in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Built by Boeing's Phantom Works division for NASA in the early 2000's, the program was transferred to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 2004, and eventually turned over to the U.S. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

Space.com relays that "the robotic vehicle resembles NASA's famous space shuttle but is much smaller. The X-37B is about 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.5 feet (2.9 m) tall, with a wingspan just less than 15 feet (4.6 m). At launch, it weighs 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms)."

The Air Force and the Pentagon refer to the space drone as a "technological achievement," but refuse to comment on the mission specifications. Possible theories for the craft's capabilities include tracking, surveillance and targeting of satellites, eavesdropping on surface communications, and even seek and destroy black-ops.

A former Air Force officer with the Space Command’s Joint Space Operations Center said, “I think it is primarily an ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) platform for testing and validating new technologies.”

Such technologies being tested by the X-37B would include new cameras, radars, and other sensors. Kyle Mizokami of The Daily Beast reports that the program thus far has proven so successful that "Boeing is converting the former Orbiter Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, where Space Shuttles were maintained in-between spaceflights, to a one-stop facility designed to refurbish landed X-37Bs and prepare them for spaceflight again."

One noted astrophysicist speculated, “I believe it’s testing some kind of experimental sensor for the National Reconnaissance Office; for example, a hyperspectral imager, or some new kind of signals intelligence package.” 

As U.S.-Russian relations devolve into a new Cold War over the situation in Ukraine, a prescient NBC news report from 2012 observed, “The satellite can see through night and through bad weather, which means that it can also zoom in to 'countries of interest' with great detail, like a Google Earth on serious Cold War steroids.”

Suddenly, klaxons blare to life as red lights flash. The X-37B shifts course dramatically and is lost on radar. Attempts to regain control of the space plane prove futile and self-destruct commands are unresponsive. The giant video screen that dominates the control center goes black, then lights up with a message - 

This is SPECTRE . . .