Only four days into its third mission, China’s enigmatic reusable space plane, Shenlong, aka the “Divine Dragon,” has added another layer of mystery. Since the spacecraft’s launch, amateur observers all over the world have been tracking it. They now claim that the Chinese spacecraft released six unidentified objects into Earth’s orbit. For what purpose? Here’s everything you need to know.
The mystery objects — designated OBJECT A, B, C, D, E, and F—are emitting emissions: Amateur spacecraft trackers
According to amateur spacecraft trackers, the mystery objects — designated OBJECT A, B, C, D, E, and F—are emitting emissions.
Scott Tilley, an amateur astronomer well-known for his satellite tracking abilities, has been keeping a close eye on these objects.
Tilley described the objects as “mysterious wingmen” on X.
In a statement to Space.com, he said: “OBJECT A’s or nearby emission is reminiscent of earlier Chinese space plane ‘wingman’ emissions in the sense the signal is modulated with a limited amount of data.”
“There is speculation that the emission from OBJECT A may be from an object close to it, but this is speculation, not based on any evidence I’m aware of.”
“It should be noted that unlike emissions early in the Chinese space plane missions 1 and 2, these emissions are very intermittent and do not stay on long,” he said.
“It’s taken days of observations, tracking pass after pass with dish antennas, to come up with this data.”
According to Space.com, Tilley and his colleagues are confident that the emissions are caused by the objects or their proximity.
China’s space plane exhibited similar behavior in previous missions launched in September 2020
This observation is based on the expected paths of the objects, the absence of other known objects during data collection, and the unique modulation, which, according to Tilley, has “only been seen from previous Chinese space plane missions using [a frequency of] 2280MHz.
“In summary, this iteration of the Chinese space plane mission launched into a similar orbit as the last two, but operationally it is exhibiting different radio behavior than before. The additional observations of the emissions from OBJECT D and E is new, but could also have been missed on earlier missions if they too were intermittent,” said Tilley.
“Something we should watch for is close encounters between OBJECT A and Objects D and E. D and E are in fairly elliptical orbits, while A is in a near-circular orbit. In the next couple of days, there will be close approaches between these objects at perigee,” he added.
According to the report, China’s space plane exhibited similar behavior in previous missions—launched in September 2020 and August 2022, releasing unknown objects into orbit.
Previously, theories ranged from service modules to small satellites to monitor the space plane.