China’s Secret Spaceplane Nears Record on Fourth Mission as U.S. Releases Orbit Photo

Top: file photo of the U.S. X-37B after its OTV-5 landing at Kennedy Space Center, Oct. 27, 2019, not the Chinese spacecraft. Photo: U.S. Air Force, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

China’s reusable experimental spacecraft, an uncrewed, winged vehicle often compared with the U.S. Space Force’s X-37B, has now been in orbit for about 265 days on its fourth mission. It is drawing fresh attention this week after the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency published a satellite photo of it on Oct. 26. The flight began Feb. 7, 2026, when a Long March 2F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

Beijing has released almost nothing about the program. It has not given the spacecraft’s official name, its size, its payloads or how long each mission will last. Most of what is public comes from short Chinese state media notices, U.S. government reports and amateur satellite trackers.

What triggered the news this week

On Oct. 26 the DIA released the 2026 edition of Challenges to Security in Space, its third unclassified report on threats in orbit. The agency says the information in it is current as of July 2026. The report says Beijing has flown four missions of its “Shenlong spaceplane” and names Shenlong and Tengyun as China’s two primary spaceplane models.

The report includes a commercial image credited to Maxar, now called Vantor, captioned “PRC Spaceplane.” The caption does not say which program or mission it shows. South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo, citing Vantor, reported that the company’s WorldView-3 satellite took the picture on May 28, 2024, from less than 90 kilometers away, according to a summary by NeoTeo. That date would fall during the third mission. The DIA caption says, in general terms, that “spaceplanes can launch into orbit to place objects in space or even test them and return to earth.”

Four missions, all from Jiuquan

All four flights have launched on Long March 2F rockets from Jiuquan. The three that have ended landed on a runway at Lop Nur in Xinjiang, according to the tracking newsletter China in Space.

• Mission 1 (September 2020): just under two days in orbit, China Daily reported.
• Mission 2 (August 2022 to May 2023): 276 days.
• Mission 3 (Dec. 14, 2023 to Sept. 6, 2024): 268 days, the figure given by Xinhua and the DIA. Some trackers, including Wikipedia’s mission table, count 266 days, depending on how the launch and landing times are measured.
• Mission 4 (Feb. 7, 2026 to present): still in orbit as of Oct. 30.

China’s official description of the fourth launch was one sentence long. Xinhua said the spacecraft “will conduct technological verification for reusable spacecraft, providing technical support for the peaceful use of space” !Unverified claim, Xinhua (Chinese state media). Reuters noted that the agency did not say how long the craft would stay in orbit or what it would test.

Objects released in orbit

Every long mission has involved at least one smaller object, and tracking the program has largely meant tracking those objects. Citing the DIA report, space writer Leonard David reported that in November 2022, during the second mission, the spaceplane appeared to maneuver with a companion satellite and hold position near it. At one point the two came within 100 meters of each other. The DIA report says the spaceplane and satellite possibly rendezvoused before the satellite was released again.

Days after the third mission launched in December 2023, U.S. tracking catalogs listed six objects, A through F, in nearby orbits. Amateur tracker Scott Tilley recorded intermittent signals on 2,280 MHz near some of them and called them “mysterious wingmen,” Space.com reported. Space.com later updated its story: further analysis showed the objects were inert debris and the signals came from other Chinese satellites nearby. “China is using 2280MHz for a number of military missions at low inclinations which got confused with the debris objects,” Tilley wrote.

On the current mission, China in Space reported that the spacecraft first raised its orbit. Around June 22 it released a small satellite and kept it about 1,000 meters away until retrieving it around July 12. The newsletter reported that the satellite was released again on Aug. 28, left alone for nearly two weeks, met again around Sept. 10 and retrieved by Sept. 13. Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell’s analysis of public orbital data also points to a release and recapture during the mission, the Times of India reported. China has not confirmed any of these operations.

By the numbers: China’s spaceplane vs. the X-37B

The two programs differ most in endurance. China’s three completed missions total 546 days in orbit, by TBR’s count from the official figures. The U.S. Space Force’s seven completed X-37B missions total about 4,206 days. The longest of them, OTV-6, spent 908 days in orbit before landing on Nov. 12, 2022, according to the Space Force. That is about 3.3 times China’s longest flight, 276 days.

China’s long missions, however, have been remarkably consistent: 276, 268 and so far 265 days. The current flight is 11 days short of the program record. China in Space noted on Oct. 29 that the spacecraft had not yet been seen lowering its orbit and that no airspace closures had been noticed near its landing sites, so a landing in the next few days looked unlikely.

The X-37B is also in orbit now. OTV-8 launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 21, 2025, Eastern time, according to the Space Force, so it has been up for about 434 days. The publicly disclosed experiments include laser communications and a quantum inertial sensor. The previous mission, OTV-7, flew to a highly elliptical orbit on a Falcon Heavy, used a new aerobraking maneuver and landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base on March 7, 2025, after more than 434 days, the Space Force said.

The military and space-competition context

The DIA frames spaceplanes as part of a broader expansion of dual-use space capabilities. It says they “are reusable and feature enhanced maneuverability, making them more suitable for certain missions than traditional satellites.” The same report lists China’s growing constellations in low Earth orbit, its Tiangong space station and its lunar and Mars robotic missions. It also notes that China showed a model of a commercial cargo spaceplane, Haolong-1, in November 2024.

The South China Morning Post reported that “Shenlong,” or “Divine Dragon,” is a nickname from Chinese space fans, not an official name. Whether the Chinese vehicle and the X-37B are similar in size or purpose cannot be confirmed from public information. Both governments describe their spaceplanes as test platforms and have kept most of their payloads secret.

For more of The Boston Report’s coverage of competition in orbit, see our reports on Russia’s Kosmos 2612 satellite approach and the Keydrift hack on satellite firms, and our explainer on Starship’s first orbital flight.

What to watch

Past landings at Lop Nur were announced by state media after the fact. Observers will watch for the spacecraft to lower its orbit, for airspace notices near the landing site and for any objects left behind when it returns. This report will be updated if the fourth mission ends.

Sources

• Defense Intelligence Agency, Challenges to Security in Space 2026 (PDF)
• DIA press release, Oct. 26, 2026
• Xinhua, fourth launch announcement, Feb. 7, 2026 (Chinese state media)
• U.S. Space Force, OTV-7 landing
• U.S. Space Force, OTV-8 launch
• China in Space, Oct. 29, 2026

Additional sources

• China Daily, mission history (Chinese state media)
• U.S. Space Force, OTV-6 landing
• Air & Space Forces Magazine, X-37B mission record
• Space.com, third-mission objects
• Leonard David, Oct. 27, 2026
• Boeing, OTV-8 experiments