China’s Spaceplane Has Released Multiple Mystery Objects In Orbit

China’s Spaceplane Has Released Multiple Mystery Objects In Orbit

Thomas Newdick

China’s shadowy miniature spaceplane appears to have deployed at least six objects into orbit while conducting its latest mission, its third. The reusable space vehicle, which is understood to be broadly comparable to the U.S. Space Force’s X-37B, clearly has military applications, although the exact nature of its payloads remains mysterious.

The Chinese spaceplane, named Shenlong (meaning Divine Dragon), has placed the objects in Earth orbit since it was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on December 14. The existence of these objects has been confirmed by amateur spacecraft trackers.

The spaceplane itself is launched atop a traditional space launch rocket and is propelled into orbit using a secondary booster. It returns to Earth in an unpowered mode, much like the X-37B.

One amateur astronomer, Scott Tilley, told Space.com’s Brett Tingley that some of the objects — which have been named A, B, C, D, E, and F — seem to be transmitting signals. Tilley has described these objects as “mysterious wingmen,” a nod to the “loyal wingman” terminology used for the drones that operate collaboratively with piloted aircraft. The Shenlong, of course, is uncrewed.

Tilley also provided Space.com with details on the differences in transmissions between the objects, with Object A said to be sending small amounts of data, while Objects D and E seem to be only emitting “placeholder” signals, without accompanying data.

“It should be noted that unlike emissions early in the Chinese spaceplane missions 1 and 2, these emissions are very intermittent and do not stay on long,” Tilley told Space.com. “It’s taken days of observations tracking pass after pass with dish antennas to come up with this data.”

While we cannot be entirely sure that these mysterious signals come from objects released by the Shenlong, the evidence is compelling.

Extensive signal analysis by various satellite trackers indicates that the transmissions come either from the objects or from something else very close to them: There is no obvious sign of any other object that might have been responsible for them. The transmissions also correlate with the expected paths of the different objects and also conform to the kinds of signals previously emitted by Chinese spaceplane missions, with the same unique frequency.

There are also signs that there could be more intriguing transmissions to come. As Tilley explained, the fact that the objects are on different orbits, ranging from almost circular to broadly elliptical, means they will move closer to one another, with the potential for transmissions or other interactions between them.

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