The proposed People’s Republic of China (PRC) Shenlong (Divine Dragon) autonomous spaceplane in … [+]
It’s been three months since a Chinese Long March 2F rocket sent a small, reusable spaceplane into orbit. The flight of the uncrewed secret craft has far eclipsed China’s previous record for this sort of vehicle, which visited space for just two days in 2020.
So whatever sort of mission this plane is on, it was already unprecedented before it went one step further and released an object in orbit, probably sometime last week.
The object first popped up in US Space Force data on Oct. 31, and according to Orbital Focus it initially traveled close enough to the spaceplane that observers wondered if it might be tethered.
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But over the last few days tracking data shows they have begun to slowly separate and were about five kilometers apart as of Friday.
It’s not clear what the object is or its purpose. Chinese authorities have been quiet about the mission aside from a brief acknowledgment of the original launch of a space plane in August.
A similar object was deployed during that two-day spaceplane flight in 2020 that emitted microwave radio signals for weeks.
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Here’s a few things we do know about China’s mysterious space plane program:
- The Space Shuttle-like uncrewed craft appears to be significantly smaller than the Boeing X-37B utilized by the US Space Force. An X-37B is currently in flight right now on a mission that has lasted over two years.
- China’s spaceplane program recently secured a significant amount of funding from the Chinese government.
- The country has also been testing a suborbital vehicle that could be capable of uber-fast point to point travel across the globe.
All other details about what exactly China is up to above our heads remain up in the air or now.
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