{"id":816645,"date":"2026-10-28T16:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T16:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/816645\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T16:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T16:14:09","slug":"chinas-spaceplane-bears-striking-resemblance-to-americas-x-37b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/816645\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s spaceplane bears striking resemblance to America’s X-37B"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n offbeat\n <\/p>\n

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\n Defense Intelligence Agency space report includes a rare orbital snap of the Chinese craft, and it looks rather familiar\n <\/p>\n

China’s secretive spaceplane has been spotted in orbit by a US commercial satellite, according to the\u00a0Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The DIA’s\u00a0report<\/a> [PDF] warns of developments by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea that allegedly threaten space security, at least from a US perspective. Most of the report details systems still under development, but one image on page 53 stands out: China’s spaceplane, snapped in orbit in 2024 by Maxar Technologies.<\/p>\n

The image has been seen before; a low-resolution snap from an industry symposium was shared<\/a> by Bluesky user @dutchspace almost two years ago. However, the higher-resolution image in the DIA report shows more detail. The spaceplane also bears a distinct resemblance to the US Space Force’s X-37B.<\/p>\n

The uncrewed X-37<\/a> began as a NASA project in 1999 before the US Department of Defense took over. After several atmospheric tests with an X-37A variant, the X-37B was launched in 2010. The reusable spaceplane can spend years in orbit, conducting classified activities. So far, it has launched eight times.<\/p>\n

According to the DIA’s report, China’s first spaceplane mission launched in 2020 and remained in orbit for two days. A second, launched in 2022, spent 276 days in orbit, and a third, launched in December 2023, spent 268 days in oribt. The last two missions appeared to include approach and rendezvous tests of objects in orbit.<\/p>\n

Russia, memorably, had a spaceplane in the ill-fated Buran, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the US Space Shuttle (although the two were very different beasts from a technical perspective \u2013 not least, Buran’s orbiter did not carry the engines used to launch it to space).<\/p>\n

However, according to the DIA’s report, Russia “has made little progress since.”<\/p>\n

The US recently confirmed<\/a> that it has weapons in space, and it would be naive not to assume rivals would have their own, whether kinetic or some form of jamming technology.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Russia’s Kosmos-2612 sidled up<\/a> to the US ICEYE-X36 satellite before retreating. It’s unclear whether the intention was an entirely innocent look at a fellow spacecraft or a bit of saber-rattling; it certainly worried US lawmakers<\/a>.\u00a0\u00ae<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"offbeat Defense Intelligence Agency space report includes a rare orbital snap of the Chinese craft, and it looks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-816645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}