Erik Simonsen / Pixels
The two greatest world powers actively compete for supremacy in orbit. At the beginning of the month, China launched its secret space plane Shenron, or “Divine Dragon”, for another mission with unknown objectives — as with the US Boeing X-37B missions.
The United States Space Force has been testing its secret space plane for more than a decade. Two versions of the unusual aircraft completed seven orbital missions over the last 15 years, accumulating thousands of days in space.
Despite the accumulated number of hours in orbit of the super-secret US plane, which is launched by a rocket and decelerates autonomously during re-entry into the atmosphere, similar to what NASA’s Space Shuttle did, we continue without knowing exactly what he’s doing in space.
China is not far behind. Your own secret space plane, nicknamed Shenron, or “Divine Dragon”was launched for the fourth time on February 7, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
The purpose of the Chinese aircraft, interestingly very similar to the X-37B of the USA, remains equally shrouded in great secrecynote o Futurism.
According to the state news agency, the space plane will “perform technological checks for reusable space vehiclesproviding technical support for the peaceful use of space”.
The aircraft’s third trip to space ended in September 2024, after 267 days in orbit. “THE success of the experience demonstrates the growing maturity of Chinese reusable space vehicle technologies, which will pave the way for more comfortable and affordable round-trip methods for the peaceful use of space in the future,” read one released at the time.
Most intriguingly, they involved Shendong’s release of small mysterious objects in orbitprobably satellites, which were tracked by the United States Space Force and even amateur astronomers.
There is much more that we don’t know about this space plane than what we know. Taking into account the payload capacity of the Long March 2F rocket, which launched the aircraft earlier this month, the Chinese aircraft could have dimensions similar to those of the Space Force’s X-37B.
Some experts believe that China may be testing maneuvers to approach other objects, or “rendezvous proximity operations” (RPO), after being detected carrying out maneuvers to approach the satellites it placed in orbit.
“I think this fits into other things they are doing, namely carrying out RPOs in low Earth orbit and in geostationary orbit”, he stated Victoria Samsondirector of space security and stability at the NGO Secure World Foundation, speaking to .
“This is a skill set that China is clearly interested in, as are Russia and the United States,” Samson added.
For now, all we have left is speculate about the purpose of each of these space planes — top-secret experiments that could be a sign that the two largest world powers are actively competing for supremacy in orbit.
