China's “reusable experimental spacecraft” is thought to resemble the Boeing X-37B spaceplane, seen above. Credit: Boeing
Gizmodo: After 3 Months in Space, China's Mysterious Spaceplane Ejects Unknown Object
China's inaugural spaceplane mission in 2020 lasted for only two days, but this one just keeps on going.
The saga of China’s spaceplane continues as the experimental vehicle just released a mystery object that’s now closely trailing behind in low Earth orbit.
On Monday, the United States Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron tracked an object in a similar orbit to the spaceplane, SpaceNews first reported. The object appeared to be very close to the spaceplane. So close, in fact, that the Space Force unit had to make sure it was a separate object before it was entered into the database as such. The object may have been ejected earlier from the spaceplane, perhaps between October 24 to 30, but it got added to the database on October 31, according to a tweet by Robert Christy from Orbital Focus.
Read more ....
Update #1: China’s mystery spaceplane releases object into orbit (Space News)
Update #2: China's mysterious spaceplane just flung a random object into orbit and nobody knows why (Daily Star)
WNU Editor: There are some reports that China's spaceplane is going to return to earth .... Is China's mysterious space plane about to return to Earth? (Space.com).
2 comments:
ok it wasn't "flung" then
Maybe it lost a part or two? Political enemies of Xi?
This craft reminds me of that thing we send up for long periods of time. X-37 or something.
Post a Comment