spaceship

Shenlong, China’s secret ship has done it again. After several months in low Earth orbit, doing who knows what, it has released a mysterious payload that no one knows anything about. With this, there are now 9 unknown objects released by the Chinese divine dragon. Without further information, as always. Shenlong is a reusable ship. Since 2020, it has carried out four flights. First it was a test one, which lasted just two days, but then it made three more stays of several months in low Earth orbit. The last one is still underway and, as usual, no one knows anything about it. It is only known that it was launched on February 7 and that a few days ago, on June 22, it launched an unknown object. It was first detected by the private surveillance company LeoLabs. After seeing a mysterious object very close to Shenlong’s location, they raised the alarm. Then asteroid tracking expert Jonathan McDowell used your X account to confirm that according to their calculations, it must be a payload from China’s secret ship. Almost no one has photographed it. There are no official photographs of Shenlong. Since it was first released, there are only a few amateur-taken images, most of them very blurry. It is not easily seen. The only photo that gave any information It was taken in 2024 by the Austrian amateur astronomer Felix Schöfbänker. In its photograph you could see a pair of appendages that possibly correspond to solar panels, which would indicate that it has a great capacity for autonomous flight. Just hypothesis. It is not known why China regularly sends this ship into space, although there are some hypotheses, as explained from Live Science. Shenlong could be conducting proximity flight tests or launching surveillance satellites or anti-satellite weapons. At the moment, there is no evidence that it has made any suspicious approach to other ships, so the first hypothesis does not seem the most appropriate. As for the objects, if he has done anything with them, nothing is known about it. It is not the only secret ship. USA He also has his own secret ship: X-37B. This one has much more experience. While Shenlong has spent about 700 days in total in low Earth orbit since its first launch in 2020, the secret American spacecraft began flying in 2010 and has already accumulated more than 4,200 flight days. However, the United States has been more transparent with the missions carried out by its ship. It usually gives information about the launches, the duration of the mission and some of the experiments. For example, on X-37B’s last mission, a year ago, It is known that it was launched to study laser communication and quantum navigation tools. Of course, there are still some of his movements that are kept secret. Hence its name. The reality is that China has always been much more cryptic with its space missions, whatever their type. Even when satellites are launched regularly, the exact payload they are carrying is often not reported until the mission is completed. Therefore, it is not strange that they maintain so much zeal regarding their divine dragon. What just happened is not an exception and it probably won’t be the last time it happens either. Image | Long March rockets (no non-blur photos of Shenlong). Credit: Shujianyang In Xataka | The “space war” is already a reality and is being waged by the US, Russia and China with a particular weapon: their satellites