China has flown an uncrewed, reusable spaceplane on four orbital missions since 2020, with two lasting more than 260 days. The craft launches vertically aboard a Long March 2F rocket from Jiuquan, then returns to Earth with a horizontal runway landing.
Its official Chinese designation translates to “reusable experimental spacecraft.” Chinese authorities say the missions are intended to test reusable spacecraft technology and support the peaceful use of space.
Beyond that, almost everything about the program remains unconfirmed.
What Is Confirmed
Four missions have been publicly announced or independently tracked, and the durations tell a clear story.
| Mission | Launch | Duration | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| First flight | September 2020 | About 2 days | Short shakedown flight |
| Second flight | 2022 | 276 days | First long-duration mission |
| Third flight | 2023 | 268 days | Objects observed released in orbit |
| Fourth flight | 31 January 2026 | Ongoing as of September 2026 | Object release detected in June 2026 |
All four launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the Long March 2F, the same human-rated rocket that carries Shenzhou crews. The state news agency Xinhua has confirmed each launch and landing at a general level, and almost no imagery of the vehicle has been released.
The Name Is Not Official
Most reporting calls the vehicle Shenlong, meaning Divine Dragon. That name belongs to an earlier Chinese spaceplane effort, an air-launched test article carried aloft under a bomber in the 2000s, and it attached itself to the current program in Western coverage.
China’s own designation is the Chongfu Shiyong Shiyan Hangtian Qi, which translates as reusable experimental spacecraft and is often shortened to CSSHQ. The distinction is worth keeping, because searching for one name pulls up material about a different vehicle from a different decade.
What Is Reported but Not Confirmed
Three observations sit outside official statements, and all three come from commercial or amateur tracking rather than any government.
The clearest is object release. The tracking company LeoLabs detected an uncataloged object near the spaceplane on 22 June 2026 and assessed with high confidence that the vehicle had released it, according to SpaceNews. Similar releases were observed on earlier missions.
The second is orbital maneuvering. Orbit changes across missions have been logged in the public catalog maintained by Space-Track, which is expected of any spacecraft with propellant and says little on its own.
The third is the vehicle’s size and shape, which has never been officially shown. Published depictions are reconstructions from radar cross-sections and launch-vehicle fairing dimensions, not photographs.
Released objects have several ordinary explanations. A small inspection satellite that photographs the parent vehicle is a standard engineering test. A subsystem being ejected for a separate experiment is another. Neither requires a weapons interpretation, and neither rules one out.
Why the United States Watches It
A reusable orbital platform is useful for the same reasons in every country that builds one. The United States Space Force has run its own since 2010. It can carry an experiment to orbit, operate it for months, and bring the hardware back for inspection, which is far more informative than telemetry from a satellite that stays up forever. It can also change orbit and return on a schedule its operator picks.
Those capabilities matter to military planners because they are the same ones a satellite inspector or a rapid-response payload platform would need. The United States Space Force runs the X-37B on the same logic and discloses about as little.
Tracking either vehicle depends on the sensor networks covered on the space domain awareness page. Long-duration classified missions are precisely the case those networks exist to monitor, and commercial trackers now supply much of the public record.
Compared to the X-37B
| Measure | Chinese spaceplane | X-37B |
|---|---|---|
| Operator | Chinese government | United States Space Force |
| Crew | None | None |
| Launch | Vertical, on Long March 2F | Vertical, on Falcon 9 or Atlas V |
| Landing | Horizontal, on a runway | Horizontal, on a runway |
| First flight | September 2020 | 2010 |
| Longest mission | 276 days | Over 900 days |
| Payloads disclosed | Almost none | Partially, some experiments named |
| Objects released in orbit | Observed | Observed |
The two programs are close enough that each is routinely used to explain the other. The X-37B has the longer record and has disclosed more, including named experiments on some flights. Neither government publishes what its vehicle carried.
Where the Spaceplane Fits in China’s Reusability Push
The spaceplane is the oldest working piece of Chinese reusable hardware, and it is easy to miss in coverage of rockets. China landed its first orbital booster in July 2026 and its first booster on legs in August 2026. The spaceplane had been flying to orbit and landing on a runway since 2020.
The two efforts solve different halves of the same problem. A booster recovery returns the expensive first stage. A spaceplane returns the payload and its housing. Neither has yet produced a Chinese vehicle that flies frequently, but the spaceplane has demonstrated the full launch, operate, land and refly cycle that the reusable rocket programs are still working toward.
Running both at once is consistent with how China has approached reusability generally: several parallel programs under different owners, with no requirement that all of them work.
The Limits of the Public Record
The record establishes that China can launch a reusable spaceplane, keep it in orbit for the better part of a year, release objects from it, and land it on a runway. That is a real capability and it is repeatable, since it has now happened four times.
The record does not establish purpose. Calling a released object a weapon test goes past the evidence. So does calling it harmless. Open-source work on a classified program can describe capability and behavior. It cannot establish intent.
For context on how orbital systems are used in conflict, the space warfare page covers the categories, and the anti-satellite weapons page covers the demonstrated ones.
What Would Change the Assessment
A disclosed payload would change it most. If China names what a mission carried, as the United States has occasionally done with the X-37B, the guesswork narrows considerably.
Observed behavior would change it too. A spaceplane maneuvering close to another country’s satellite, or recovering an object rather than releasing one, would move the program from ambiguous to specific. Neither has been reported.
To follow the current mission, check the orbital tracking updates published by LeoLabs and the catalog entries maintained by Space-Track, which are the primary public sources for a program that discloses little else.