The Defense Intelligence Agency released a 130-page unclassified report on October 26, 2026 that includes a 2024 satellite photograph of a Chinese reusable spaceplane. The image sits on page 53 of Challenges to Security in Space, carries a credit to Maxar Technologies (the company now operates as Vantor), and is captioned simply as a “PRC Spaceplane.” Space reporters and analysts describe it as the sharpest public look yet at a vehicle China has flown on four missions and rarely shown.
Tech news in one quick read: Get the most interesting stories in startups, tech and programming, each with a short TLDR, in one daily email from TLDR.
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
The caption does not say which of China’s two spaceplane designs appears in the frame, and the report does not claim the picture is the first of its kind. The sections below separate what the agency wrote from what outside analysts have inferred.
A caption that names no model
Live Science reported that the DIA caption does not say whether the vehicle is Shenlong or Tengyun, the two models the report says China operates, and that the picture is widely believed to show Shenlong. The craft in the image has delta wings, payload bay doors, a dark heat shield and a rear service module with solar arrays, which gives it a resemblance to the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B. Global Defense News, cited by Live Science, notes that the two are not externally identical because of differences in wing geometry, and Live Science adds that no Tengyun launch has been confirmed. In Popular Science’s account, the photo shows the craft’s underside and rear-mounted solar arrays, and the writer judges the vehicle almost certainly to be Shenlong.
TWZ quoted the caption and reported that the image carries a 2024 copyright. After TWZ’s update, Vantor confirmed that the photo was taken on May 28, 2024, by the WorldView-3 satellite from just under 56 miles up. That date falls inside China’s third mission, which Live Science dates from December 2023 to September 2024. The agency’s wording, as TWZ relays it, calls reusable spaceplanes a key capability that can place objects in orbit or test them and bring them home, and the agency’s announcement of the report frames it as a survey of security challenges beyond the atmosphere.
Station-keeping at 1 km on the second mission
The Aviationist, drawing on the DIA’s mission history in Challenges to Security in Space, reports that on the second mission the vehicle maneuvered with a companion satellite and conducted station-keeping at around 1 km separation, and that the spaceplane and satellite possibly rendezvoused before the satellite was re-released. On the third mission, the agency says, the spacecraft released and interacted with an object. The word “possibly” belongs to the DIA, and the Aviationist’s write-up keeps it attached to the rendezvous claim. Popular Science likewise limits the quoted DIA language to the phrase “released and interacted with an object” and notes that little else is disclosed.
Live Science puts running totals on the program: at least nine unidentified objects released into low Earth orbit since 2022, most likely small satellites such as cubesats, and more than 800 days in orbit across four missions. The fourth mission launched February 7 on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and is the one under way now. The Aviationist points out that this mission falls outside the period the DIA report covers, so the totals blend the agency’s history with public tracking. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell has suggested that the craft may have retrieved the object it released in June, possibly with a robotic arm, and put it out again in late August.
Live Science lays out the mission history behind those numbers. The first flight was a two-day mission launched in September 2020. The second ran from August 2022 to May 2023, about eight months, and the third from December 2023 to September 2024, about nine months. Journalist Andrew Jones spotted the new image in the report and shared it on X. For scale, the X-37B is 29 feet long with a 15-foot wingspan, while the size of China’s vehicle is unclear, and Live Science cannot say whether one spaceplane or several flew across the four missions.
No weapons role established in the tracking data
Live Science states that the image does not establish a weapons role and describes Shenlong as most likely not a military asset. The Aviationist adds that tracking data show deployed objects and rendezvous and proximity operations that do not establish the craft’s intended military role, and that there is no evidence yet the vehicle is designed as a kinetic anti-satellite weapon. China has described the program, through Xinhua, as serving the peaceful use of space. Those are outside characterizations and a Chinese government statement; none of them is a DIA finding.
The agency’s broader framing is blunter: Live Science quotes DIA authors writing that Beijing aims to become the preeminent leader in space.
The open questions are specific. The purpose of the nine released objects is unexplained. The caption leaves the identity of the vehicle in the picture unstated. McDowell’s retrieval idea rests on orbital tracking, with nothing in the DIA caption to support it. As of Live Science’s October 29 update, the fourth mission that began on February 7 was still the current one.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
Tech news in one quick read: Subscribe to TLDR →
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
More from Morning Overview
- Doctors warn a silent liver disease now affects one in three American adults
- The FBI told the rest of ShinyHunters to surrender after a 24-year-old was arrested
- Two passengers died at an Ohio toll plaza, and the NTSB now wants the cash lanes shut
- Long use of a common prostate pill is tied to a higher chance of glaucoma
