Long March 2F, one of China’s most reliable rockets, recently took off from a spaceport in the Gobi Desert with a secret spaceplane. China’s state news agency Xinhua published a brief report on the launch and said the reusable test spacecraft will remain in orbit for a while.
This is the second time China has launched what is believed to be a small spaceplane similar in size and scope to the US Space Force’s experimental X-37B vehicle. The uncrewed X-37B looks like NASA’s space shuttle, but is less than 10 meters long. The cargo compartment of the vehicle can carry a standard refrigerator-sized load into space.
Chinese space development official Cheng Hongbo said in an interview in 2017 that the spacecraft will be capable of up to 20 flights. China first launched its spaceplane on a short flight in September 2020. The plane landed on a dry runway in the salt lake bed known as Lop Nur in western China two days later.
The flight, which is the subject of this news, started on August 4, lasted five days and doubled the duration of the first test flight. Andrew Jones, a reporter specializing in the Chinese space program, also states that spaceplanes fly a lot. This time, on a more eccentric orbit of 346 km by 593 km, 50 degrees above the equator…
Space Force has traditionally released images of the X-37B vehicle after landing, but so far China has not released any images or video of the spaceplane.
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