New images show China’s stealthy spaceplane in orbit, revealing new details about its third secretive mission—including the surprising appearance of what appear to be solar panels.
Astrophotographer Felix Schöfbänker used a 14-inch telescope to capture a series of images of the Chinese spaceplane and shared them on AstroBin, an image hosting platform for astrophotographers.
Beelden van het Chinese ruimtevaartuig #Shenlong in een baan om de aarde, vastgelegd met een 14-inch telescoop van Felix Schöfbänker in Oostenrijk. pic.twitter.com/aNBmyDiVcm
— Marijke Louise (@MarijkeLouisevd) August 5, 2024
The images reveal a shadowy figure barely visible amidst the darkness of space, with what appear to be a pair of solar panels stuck to the tail-end of the spacecraft. That’s a surprise—there’s very little information known about China’s spaceplane, including whether it’s supposed to be equipped with solar panels. From the images, the spaceplane is estimated to be around 30 feet (10 meters) in length.
The reusable spacecraft launched on December 14, 2023 on board a Long March 2F carrier rocket. This was the spaceplane’s third launch, with its inaugural flight taking place in 2020. During its debut mission, the spacecraft stayed in orbit for only two days before returning to Earth. For its second time to fly, the Chinese spaceplane launched in August 2022 and spent 276 days in orbit.
Now on its third mission, the spaceplane is nearing its previous record with eight months spent in orbit thus far. Shortly after launching for the third time, the orbital vehicle released six objects that appeared to be emitting some sort of signal. In May, the spaceplane released an unidentifiable object, which was thought to indicate the end of its mission but it still appears to be going strong.
As the name suggests, spaceplanes are airplane-spacecraft hybrids, equipped with the ability to orbit Earth like a spacecraft and then operate like a regular aircraft in Earth’s atmosphere that can land on the ground. The experimental spacecraft can be reused, filling in the gap for a growing space industry that is on the lookout for increased access to orbit.
Similar to China’s spaceplane, the U.S. Space Force has its own test vehicle. The Boeing X-37 launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on December 28, 2023 for its seventh mission. Marco Langbroek, an astrodynamics lecturer at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands, recently captured images of the X-37 spaceplane in orbit, which hadn’t been seen since March.
For more spaceflight in your life, follow us on X and bookmark Gizmodo’s dedicated Spaceflight page.
