When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.An illustration of China’s robotic Shenlong space plane above Earth. | Credit: Erik Simonsen/Getty ImagesChina’s reusable space plane is circling Earth once again.The Shenlong (“Divine Dragon”) spacecraft launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on Feb. 6, kicking off the robotic vehicle’s fourth-ever orbital mission.What exactly is it doing up there?We don’t know for sure. The Chinese government has revealed few details about Shenlong, whose three previous flights to low Earth orbit (LEO) launched in September 2020, May 2023 and September 2024 and lasted two days, 276 days and 266 days, respectively.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe official line is vague and anodyne: Shenlong helps test technologies that “will pave the way for more convenient and affordable round-trip methods for the peaceful use of space in the future.”That use case is similar to the one the U.S. military gives for its autonomous X-37B space plane, which Shenlong is thought to broadly resemble. And secrecy is a shared trait: Most X-37B payloads and activities are classified.Analysts believe the Space Force owns two X-37B vehicles, each of which is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and looks like a miniature version of NASA’s old space shuttle orbiters. The X-37B reached orbit for the first time in 2010 and is currently flying its eighth mission, which launched last August atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.Though military officials have always insisted that the X-37B is merely a technology testbed, the vehicle has aroused suspicion in some quarters. Early in its flying days, for example, China apparently viewed it as a space weapon. But these fears are overblown, experts say.AdvertisementAdvertisement”To date, the X-37B has never approached or rendezvoused with any other known space object and generally orbits far below the vast majority of operational satellites,” the nonprofit Secure World Foundation (SWF) wrote in its X-37B fact sheet. (There was one exception to that low-orbit rule, as the fact sheet notes: On the seventh X-37B flight, the vehicle got more than 24,000 miles, or 38,600 kilometers, from Earth on a highly elliptical orbit.)Photo of Earth snapped by the X-37B spac …
