What This Orbital Image Reveals

1. A newly unclassified U.S. intelligence image shows China’s secretive reusable spaceplane with its payload bay doors visibly open.

2. A separate unidentified satellite is docked to the rear of the vehicle, although other analysts describe the structure as a service module.

3. The image was actually captured on May 28, 2024 — while China’s latest spaceplane mission, launched in February 2026, remains a separate and ongoing operation.

For years, China’s reusable spaceplane was known mainly through orbital tracking data, grainy telescope photographs and the unexplained objects appearing around it in space. Now the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has released what may be the clearest public look yet at the spacecraft — and one detail in the photograph deserves particular attention.

Something else is attached to it.

The image appears in DIA’s newly released Challenges to Security in Space 2026 report. Commercial imaging company Maxar Technologies, now Vantor, captured the photograph using its WorldView-3 satellite on May 28, 2024, from just under 90 kilometers — roughly 56 miles — away. Vantor says the spacecraft’s payload bay doors are open and that a separate satellite is docked to its aft section, with structural components and solar arrays visible.

That description creates one of the most interesting unresolved questions surrounding the image. Some aerospace analysts have described the attached hardware as a service module supplying power and propulsion. Vantor, however, specifically described it as a separate satellite docked to the vehicle. Publicly available information does not yet settle exactly what that attached spacecraft is.

There is another important distinction. Although the vehicle is widely reported as Shenlong, or “Divine Dragon,” DIA’s actual caption identifies it only as a “PRC Spaceplane.” The intelligence report discusses more than one Chinese spaceplane design and does not explicitly name the photographed spacecraft as Shenlong.

What is unmistakable is the vehicle’s configuration — a compact winged spacecraft with twin vertical tails, a central payload area and a shape remarkably similar to the U.S. Space Force’s Boeing X-37B. Both concepts allow a reusable spacecraft to launch aboard a rocket, maneuver for extended periods in orbit and later return to Earth for a runway landing.

The mystery deepens because China’s spaceplane program has repeatedly been associated with smaller objects in orbit. During its 2023–2024 mission, observers tracked multiple objects associated with the launch and later detected another object separating from the spacecraft. Early reports that six nearby objects were spacecraft payloads were later challenged when tracking analysis indicated those six were likely launch debris — an important correction when assessing claims about what the vehicle actually deployed.

China’s fourth reusable-spacecraft mission launched from Jiuquan aboard a Long March 2F on February 7, 2026. In June, observers again detected an unidentified object near the vehicle. Open-source analysts have also reported apparent rendezvous, proximity and possible recapture operations during the program’s previous flights.

None of that proves the Chinese spaceplane is carrying a weapon. The DIA photograph does not establish that conclusion either.

What it does establish is something more concrete: China possesses a reusable orbital vehicle capable of carrying payloads, operating alongside other spacecraft and returning to Earth — while keeping much of what it does between launch and landing outside public view.

And now, for the first time, that secrecy has a much clearer picture attached to it.

About the Author

Samuel López is an investigative reporter and news correspondent for USA Herald who has reported for the publication since 2019. His work focuses on legal affairs, national security, emerging technology, insurance and scientific developments, with particular attention to government records and separating documented evidence from speculation. His reporting on classified and newly released government material examines not simply what agencies disclose, but what the underlying records actually establish.

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