China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said.
The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it.
“It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Photo: AFP
“Gaining experience with this kind of grab and release is good if you want to for instance ... refuel your own satellites,” he said.
As militaries worldwide develop complex satellite networks, a reusable spacecraft that can interfere with them could have immense value, Langbroek and other experts said.
China has never disclosed what technologies the spacecraft has tested, nor has the spaceplane been publicly photographed since it began operating.
Photo: Reuters
The US first launched its uncrewed Boeing X-37B spaceplane in 2010, while Russia has recently launched several satellites that US officials suspect might be weapons, a charge that Russia has denied.
China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like the X-37B, said Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability at the Secure World Foundation think tank in Washington.
“I don’t think that either has a whole lot of military utility, to be honest,” Samson said. “I am guessing that both are technology demonstrators.”
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Xinhua news agency has reported the launches and landings of the spaceplane, which it refers to as a “reusable test spacecraft.”
The current flight of the Chinese spaceplane began in December last year. The previous mission, which also involved putting a separate object in space and retrieving it, launched in August 2022 and lasted 276 days, tracking data showed.
Its first flight was in September 2020 and lasted two days.
“We see breathtaking advancements by the People’s Republic of China in space,” said General Stephen Whiting, commander of the US Space Command, adding that his organization did not know what objects the spaceplane had released.
“Any space activity that they undertake, we assume has some dual use in the national security realm,” Whiting said. “We’re always interested in understanding what could that dual use be, and trying to make sure that we have a good knowledge of that.”
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