The Florida runway where space shuttles touched down for nearly 30 years has a new mission

Space Florida intends to offer the Shuttle Landing Facility as a testing ground for new technologies and companies, including unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems and a new generation of horizontal-launch space vehicles.
The Air Force has also stated it intends to use the runway to land its uncrewed X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, beginning possibly with the end of the mini-shuttle's current mission, which launched in May.
Completed in 1976, the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) was first used to land a space shuttle eight years later on Feb. 11, 1984, when the orbiter Challenger returned to Earth to complete the STS-41B mission. That flight marked the first time that a spacecraft had landed at its launch site.
"We made a big thing out of it back then, that it was going to be the first [landing] at the Cape [Cape Canaveral]," said astronaut Vance Brand, who as commander was at Challenger's controls, in a 2002 NASA interview. "The Cape was a beautiful place to land, and we were very happy to get to be the first guys to do it."
In the 27 years that followed, 77 shuttle missions touched down on the runway, which was designated either 15 or 33 depending on the approach. The last orbiter to touch down on the SLF was Atlantis on the final shuttle mission, STS-135, on July 21, 2011.