The reusable spacecraft landed at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in an isolated area in northwest China.
It was launched from the same location on a Long March 2F rocket on December 14, 2023, on its third mission, and spent 268 days in orbit, according to Chinese state media Xinhua.
While the spacecraft’s exact capabilities remain largely unknown, Xinhua says the craft will “pave the way for more convenient and affordable methods of round-trip travel for the peaceful use of space in the future.”
It’s not known exactly what he was doing on his most recent mission—or any other mission, for that matter.
As with previous missions, spacecraft trackers on the ground noticed that the spacecraft had released a small object into orbit.
New methods of space travel
“This object could be the deployment of a subsatellite, or it could be a piece of hardware ejected before the end of the mission and deorbit (the first flight of the space plane involved something similar),” said astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in a post on X.
It’s reportedly what’s called rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) with the object, meaning it tested capabilities to rendezvous and approach the object from space, SpaceNews reported.
These operations can be used to repair or perform maintenance on friendly satellites, and military superpowers are believed to be perfecting these techniques to be able to manipulate adversary satellites during any future orbital combat.
India is developing its own orbital space plane
The Chinese spacecraft was launched on this recent mission just two days before the scheduled launch of the US Space Force’s X-37B reusable orbital vehicle, writes .
That launch was canceled with about 30 minutes left in the countdown, and the X-37B was scheduled to launch two weeks later on December 28, 2023, on its seventh mission.
As with the Chinese space plane, the X-37B’s capabilities and missions are largely secret; it is known to be an orbital testing platform for new technologies, but that’s about it.
India is also developing its own reusable Pushpak.
