China’s reusable space plane has become even more mysterious. Four days after the launch of its third mission, the Shenlong (“Divine Dragon”) spacecraft launched six objects into Earth orbit.
The six mysterious objects were designated as Objects A, B, C, D, E and F. Amateur astronomer Scott Tilley said that Object A emits signals similar to those emitted by the spacecraft launched on the previous mission.
Tilley also added that there is a belief that the radiation from Object A could be coming from another object located nearby. But this assumption is not supported by any evidence.
Objects D and E emit signals that are not filled with any data.
“It should be noted that, unlike the emissions at the beginning of the first Chinese spaceplane missions 1 and 2, these emissions are very variable and do not persist for long. It took days of observations tracking pass after pass using parabolic antennas to get this data,” says Tilley.
Tilley and other observers analyzed these emissions and concluded that they were coming from either the objects or something close to them. They also noted that Objects D and E are in elliptical orbits, while A is in a nearly circular orbit. In the next few days, these objects will come closer together in orbit. At this moment, they will be at their perigee, the point of maximum convergence with the Earth.
The Chinese spaceplane has demonstrated this behavior in the past. During the previous missions, launched in September 2020 and August 2022, the ship launched a small unidentified object into orbit. It was assumed that this could be a service module for testing the launch of payloads or small satellites designed to monitor the vehicle.
