A winged Chinese spacecraft that strongly resembles the US military's X-37B spaceplane was photographed in orbit in 2024 by a passing US-owned commercial satellite. The full-resolution image has now become public.
The picture shows a vehicle with delta wings, payload bay doors and a dark heat shield. At the rear sits a service module fitted with solar arrays that generate power. In many respects, the design appears to be a copy of the X-37B flown by the US Space Force.
The image was captured by a commercial imaging satellite owned by Vantor, a company that operated under the name Maxar in 2024. Vantor is among several firms that supply reconnaissance imagery of sites around the world to the US military and intelligence agencies. The same Earth-imaging satellites can also aim their telescopes at objects in space.
Lower-resolution views showing the general shape of a Chinese spaceplane had been publicly available before now. A US Space Force official disclosed Maxar's observation at a 2024 conference in South Korea. However, the Pentagon did not release the full-resolution image until Monday, when it appeared in an unclassified Defense Intelligence Agency assessment of threats to the United States in space.
The DIA report reveals little that is new about what the Chinese spaceplane actually does in orbit. China has launched four spaceplane missions since 2020, with durations of up to nine months. The fourth mission launched in February and remains in orbit. It is not publicly known whether China has one spaceplane or several in its inventory.
The US side offers a point of comparison. The Space Force has two X-37B vehicles flying in rotation. Of the eight missions flown to date, the longest ran two and a half years from launch to landing.
US officials have released photos of the X-37B vehicles, published details about their design and dimensions, and disclosed a handful of the experiments they have carried into orbit. Most of the X-37B's activities in space, however, remain classified.
