China's secret space plane flies higher and longer than before
China's secret space plane flies higher and longer than before
Enlarge / A Long March 2F carrier rocket carrying the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft takes off from the launch center of Jiuquan satellites on June 5, 2022.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
Last week, one of China's most reliable rockets, the Long March 2F vehicle, took off from a spaceport in the Gobi Desert carrying a secret space plane.
In a brief report on the launch by China's state news service Xinhua, the government provided few details about the "reusable test spacecraft" other than saying it would remain in orbit for " some time" and provide technical verification of reusable and in-orbit services.
This is the second time China has launched what is believed to be a small spaceplane, likely similar in size and range to the US Space Force's experimental X-37B vehicle. This unmanned X-37B looks like NASA's space shuttle, but at less than 10 meters long, it's considerably smaller. The cargo hold of the vehicle can hold something the size of a standard refrigerator.
In a 2017 interview, Chinese space development official Cheng Hongbo said the spaceplane would be capable of up to 20 flights. China first launched its space plane in September 2020 on a short flight. It landed two days later on a runway in a dry salt lake in western China known as Lop Nur.
The current flight was launched on August 4 and now lasts five days, more than doubling the duration of the original test flight. A journalist specializing in the Chinese space program, Andrew Jones, also notes that the spaceplane is flying in a much more eccentric orbit this time, 346 km by 593 km, inclined at 50 degrees above the equator; compared to 331 km by 347 km, with a similar gradient, in 2020.
So what's he doing up there? Secret and space stuff, of course. The reality is that we don't even know what the US Space Force is doing with the X-37B, which has completed six flights since 2010. The US vehicle likely serves multiple purposes, including functioning as a test bed in orbit to develop advanced surveillance sensors, but military officials have never provided a detailed public account of its activities.
The Space Force has two X-37B vehicles, and even their first flights lasted over 200 days. The last flight, launched in May 2020, saw the X-37B set new duration records, with the current mission now in orbit for 813 days and counting. The shorter duration of the Chinese spaceplane's first flight may indicate that it plays a special role in testing hypersonic technologies or other activities related to high-speed atmospheric re-entry.
The Space Force usually releases images of its X-37B vehicle after landing, but so far China has not released any images or videos of its space plane. The only way we knew when it landed in 2020 was from satellite trackers and Planet Labs satellite images of the Lop Nur landing site in China.
Enlarge / A Long March 2F carrier rocket carrying the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft takes off from the launch center of Jiuquan satellites on June 5, 2022.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
Last week, one of China's most reliable rockets, the Long March 2F vehicle, took off from a spaceport in the Gobi Desert carrying a secret space plane.
In a brief report on the launch by China's state news service Xinhua, the government provided few details about the "reusable test spacecraft" other than saying it would remain in orbit for " some time" and provide technical verification of reusable and in-orbit services.
This is the second time China has launched what is believed to be a small spaceplane, likely similar in size and range to the US Space Force's experimental X-37B vehicle. This unmanned X-37B looks like NASA's space shuttle, but at less than 10 meters long, it's considerably smaller. The cargo hold of the vehicle can hold something the size of a standard refrigerator.
In a 2017 interview, Chinese space development official Cheng Hongbo said the spaceplane would be capable of up to 20 flights. China first launched its space plane in September 2020 on a short flight. It landed two days later on a runway in a dry salt lake in western China known as Lop Nur.
The current flight was launched on August 4 and now lasts five days, more than doubling the duration of the original test flight. A journalist specializing in the Chinese space program, Andrew Jones, also notes that the spaceplane is flying in a much more eccentric orbit this time, 346 km by 593 km, inclined at 50 degrees above the equator; compared to 331 km by 347 km, with a similar gradient, in 2020.
So what's he doing up there? Secret and space stuff, of course. The reality is that we don't even know what the US Space Force is doing with the X-37B, which has completed six flights since 2010. The US vehicle likely serves multiple purposes, including functioning as a test bed in orbit to develop advanced surveillance sensors, but military officials have never provided a detailed public account of its activities.
The Space Force has two X-37B vehicles, and even their first flights lasted over 200 days. The last flight, launched in May 2020, saw the X-37B set new duration records, with the current mission now in orbit for 813 days and counting. The shorter duration of the Chinese spaceplane's first flight may indicate that it plays a special role in testing hypersonic technologies or other activities related to high-speed atmospheric re-entry.
The Space Force usually releases images of its X-37B vehicle after landing, but so far China has not released any images or videos of its space plane. The only way we knew when it landed in 2020 was from satellite trackers and Planet Labs satellite images of the Lop Nur landing site in China.
Enlarge / A Long March 2F carrier rocket carrying the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft takes off from the launch center of Jiuquan satellites on June 5, 2022.
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
