McDowell notes that, with plenty of spy satellites already in space, China doesn’t necessarily need a spaceplane for that purpose. The Xinhua story about the spacecraft’s landing highlighted “the peaceful use of space”. For example, last year China removed a defunct satellite from orbit using another satellite. “ have been working a lot with robot arms in other contexts, like the Chinese space station and other satellite servicing experiments,” McDowell says. The manoeuvre, which he says could have been achieved with a robotic arm, might have been practice for satellite maintenance and repair. That would suggest the spaceplane has cargo capacity, meaning it could be used to carry instruments and satellites. One possible explanation, he says, is that the spaceplane captured the object and carried it as cargo before releasing it again. The object seemed to disappear from orbit in January before reappearing in March, according to McDowell, who tracks the spacecraft using US Space Force data. According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington DC, the spaceplane released an object that was detected last October. Releasing and capturing satellites while in orbit might also have been tested. Changing orbital trajectories or unfolding solar panels are just two examples of the kinds of mid-orbit manoeuvre that would be useful to perfect. Satellite capture?Ĭhina might be testing a variety of technologies that could further its space ambitions, says McDowell. Given that the maximum payload capacity of the launch vehicle is 8.4 tonnes, the spaceplane probably weighs between 5 and 8 tonnes, says McDowell - much smaller than NASA’s retired space shuttles that performed crewed missions, including Columbia and Challenger.Īlthough the current model is too small to carry crew members, McDowell says he would not be surprised if the country introduces a larger spaceplane for crewed missions in the future. The Chinese media reported that the spacecraft was launched last August from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on a Long March 2F rocket, which China used to launch its Shenzhou crewed space missions. Like the X-37B, the Chinese vehicle seems to be fairly small. Some other reusable spacecraft, such as SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, are modules attached to launch rockets that rely on parachutes to land. McDowell says satellite sensing shows the spacecraft gliding and performing a runway landing at the Lop Nur military base in China’s northwest Xinjiang region, suggesting that it is a plane. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian in Boston, Massachusetts, agrees that China’s experimental spacecraft could be a nod to Boeing’s X-37B spaceplane. The purpose of X-37B is unknown, but he says the Chinese government was concerned about the craft’s military capacities when it was revealed in 2010. The spacecraft is likely to be similar to a US spaceplane, the Boeing X-37B, according to Kevin Pollpeter, a senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, a US government-funded research and analysis organization in Arlington, Virginia. In September 2020, China returned a reusable experimental spacecraft that had spent two days in orbit. The nine-month mission is probably a second test of the reusable spacecraft. Although the upfront costs are high, the costs of running reusable craft are a fraction of those for single-use craft, making reusable spacecraft attractive if a mission requires several flights. “The complete success of this experiment marks a significant breakthrough in our country’s research on reusable spacecraft technology,” Chinese state media agency Xinhua reported, suggesting that Chinese researchers have developed technology, such as heat shields and landing equipment, specifically for reusable craft.Ĭhina, the US companies Boeing and SpaceX and NASA are the only players to have launched and recovered orbiting reusable craft. Although China has not revealed details about the spacecraft’s design and operation, aerospace engineers have pieced together information from fragments, painting a picture of a craft with potential for research as well as military uses. Credit: Boeing/Sipa/ShutterstockĬhina has landed a mysterious spacecraft that spent nine months in Earth’s orbit, making the nation one of just a handful of entities that have successfully operated a reusable spacecraft. The Boeing X-37B, pictured here, is thought to have inspired China’s mysterious spaceplane.
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