The Chinese space program has dropped a surprise—and mysterious—object in Earth’s orbit, driving speculation about the nature of the payload.
China launched a spaceplane on Aug. 4 using its Long March 2F rocket, and it has been in orbit for roughly three months, SpaceNews reports. Its trajectory has been closely associated with an unknown payload. The U.S. Space Force initially tracked the object near the spaceplane, after which Space-Track.org, an orbital objects database, logged an entry for it on Oct. 21.
The origins of the package are still unknown, and China has yet to make a statement about it. Harvard University astronomer Jonathan McDowell speculated on Twitter that it could be a service module, which might have previously contained fuel or supplies for the spaceplane but is now trash to be burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. This would also mean that the spacecraft itself is ready to deorbit and return to terra firma.
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Or, the object could also be some sort of satellite to monitor the spaceplane’s mission or serve some other purpose. There’s a very unlikely but still remote possibility the object is an anti-satellite weapon or some other nefarious device—meaning that China is ready to escalate the burgeoning theater of space warfare.
Regardless of what the object is, it only adds to the mystery and enigma that is China’s spaceplane program, which Beijing has kept a close secret since the first launch took place in 2020. While that inaugural mission lasted just two days, this latest one has gone on for more than 90 days. The second launch also came as a bit of a surprise as China only said it was launching a classified payload, which was later revealed to be a test of its reusable spaceplane.
So little is known about what the satellite could be—or even what the spaceplane is like. One thing that is certain is that China’s determination to keep its spacefaring projects close to its chest is a clear indication that it is taking space very, very seriously. Not only does it represent the future of humanity’s ambitions to colonize other planets, but it also represents very real power on Earth.
