End of space planes?

Has there not been an unmanned mini-me shuttle in orbit for some time now? Shifting its orbit as it does its sneaky stuff, i.e. at least one task the shuttle was originally meant to be do?

I think if commercial flights had delivered a new craft to the ISS before Shuttle retirement, we could be more confident about NASA plans on beyond LEO.

As for ESA, thought there was a good involvement in ion drive and a good industry in at least getting satellites built and into space?