Shenlong Object Release Puts Orbital Tracking in the Spotlight

China’s mysterious Shenlong space plane recently released another mystery object into low Earth orbit, providing another data point for one of the most opaque reusable spacecraft programs flying today. And the immediate importance of the event is not that the purpose of the object is unknown, but that it was detected, cataloged, and tracked despite the program’s secrecy.

Shenlong is described as a robotic space plane capable of vertical launch on a rocket and horizontal runway landing. There have been few public details from China regarding the nature and purpose of Shenlong or the missions it conducts, nor has the spacecraft been positively identified by anyone else. This means the only hope of understanding what the vehicle is doing is through orbital tracking and cataloging.

The current mission began Feb. 7 on a Long March 2F launch from Jiuquan. According to LeoLabs, on June 22 “an unknown object in the vicinity [of the spaceplane]” was observed by one of its radars in New Zealand, and by the end of the day, “independently cataloged this object and assessed with high confidence that it was released from the Chinese space plane.” On June 23, space expert and tracker Jonathan McDowell confirmed the object’s origin and noted that it was also being tracked by the U.S. Space Force. He speculates that it may be a “cubesat,” but this has not yet been confirmed.

This is the ninth such payload release from Shenlong since 2022. Following a short first mission in 2020, Shenlong conducted a much longer mission from August 2022 to May 2023 and another from December 2023 to September 2024. It released one payload during the second mission, then seven others during the third including six released simultaneously. Even through all those flights, the purpose of the payloads remains undisclosed by China.

And that matters precisely because a combination of a reusable space plane and frequent releases of payloads is one of the major issues in space operations: maneuverable vehicles with the ability to eject other objects create a far more challenging problem for tracking than merely keeping a catalog of satellites in stable orbits.

This is exactly why the space tracking element of the story should receive the same attention as the vehicle itself. As LeoLabs announced earlier this month, it deployed a portable Scout-S radar system in the Indo-Pacific for tracking maneuvering satellites in low Earth orbit, including China’s space plane. It uses 3D scanning, direct radiating array technology, and modular S-band configuration, and LeoLabs claims that it extends observation window from seconds to several minutes per pass. Practically, it increases the odds of distinguishing between a normal pass of a spacecraft and its payload release.

And this is precisely what is of critical importance to the U.S. space defense plans. While one thing is a mysterious platform in general, something else is a mysterious platform capable of maneuvering, staying in orbit for months and releasing payloads. The latter situation calls for a very different type of tracking and requires a more resilient network with fast updates available.

It is important not to go past the facts. Shenlong has been discussed in outside assessments as a tool potentially involved in rendezvous and proximity operations, and one of the ideas is that the payloads might serve as practice targets for close proximity. There have also been rumors about anti-satellite capabilities. However, none of that has been publicly confirmed, nor there are any cases when spacecrafts were sabotaged by Shenlong or any of its payloads. In space security, dual-use technology is the standard rather than an exception, and the basic orbit handling capability can be used both for inspection, servicing and other purposes.

The natural comparison, of course, is the U.S. X-37B program, another secretive spaceplane platform. Yet even there, U.S. officials revealed some information about its design, mission parameters and research goals. This is another example of the gap in transparency making space-tracking networks so important for public understanding of events.

Shenlong’s last payload release does not give answers about the purpose of the vehicle. What it gives, however, is an obvious demonstration of how space domain awareness is developing from occasional observation to persistent custody. For maneuvering spacecraft in low Earth orbit, this tracking architecture is no longer a detail. It becomes a key instrument by which the outside world will distinguish between orbital events and speculation.

By David Whitaker — Associate editor for AMI’s aerospace and drone systems desk, translating flight systems, aircraft programs, spaceflight, and UAV developments into accessible technical stories.