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People may be overthinking why the USAF flies the thing. If it's in active service, the USAF flies it once in a while. Otherwise they mothball it or retire it. Aircraft which just sit there don't stay in operating condition.

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I mean, it's been in orbit for more than two years. That doesn't really lend itself to a test flight to make sure it works.

Unless they're testing it's durability?

Or more likely slowly taking high resolution photos of foreign satellites and/or trying to sniff any RF coming off of them.

Most of the cost is in the launch. Once it's up there, it may as well stay up there and do something.

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