What to Know About China’s Top-Secret Spaceplane
The US Defense Intelligence Agency has released high-resolution imagery of China's secretive spaceplane, which appears to be a design copy of the American X-37B. While the vehicle's exact mission remains classified, its operational profile mirrors the US Space Force's unpiloted orbital craft.
Why it matters
The development highlights an escalating space-based arms race and the increasing use of commercial satellite imagery for military intelligence gathering.
The Chinese spaceplane has delta wings, payload bay doors, a dark heat shield, and a rear-mounted service module with power-generating solar arrays. In other words, the design of the winged ship is, to a great degree, a copy of the X-37B spaceplane flown by the US Space Force.
The photo was taken by a commercial imaging satellite owned by a company called Vantor, known as Maxar in 2024. Vantor is one of several companies that provide reconnaissance imagery of locations around the world to the US military and US intelligence agencies. The same Earth-imaging satellites can point their telescopes at objects in space.
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