The hook: In the October 28 roundup, one line flashed by: the United States had declassified a Maxar image showing China’s Shenlong orbital spaceplane, the “Divine Dragon.” The phrase “the first clear photo in history” sounds about as convincing in astronautics as “Linux will conquer the desktop this year.” But I went digging — and found something interesting: the image really exists, really is the first, and really is strange. The vehicle, about which nothing had been publicly known since 2020 except its orbit and glint, turned out to be almost a clone of the American X-37B, flying with its cargo-bay doors open alongside an unknown satellite, having released at least nine objects into orbit — some of which it later retrieved — and landing on a runway beside the Lop Nur nuclear test site. Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence accompanied the photograph with a caption barely two sentences long: “Spaceplanes can launch into orbit to place objects in space or even test them and return to earth.” Seventeen words about a machine around which an entire industry of speculation has been built for four years.
On Monday, October 26, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) published an updated edition of its report Challenges to Security in Space — a 130-page unclassified overview of the space capabilities of “strategic competitors”: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. On page 53, between threat charts, the authors inserted a photograph captioned “PRC Spaceplane.” The image was taken by a satellite belonging to Maxar Technologies — now Vantor — in 2024, as the copyright notice in the caption indicates.
The first to spot it was Andrew Jones, a journalist specializing in China’s space program: on October 27, he posted it on X, and then the frenzy began. Here is the interesting part: nowhere did the DIA emphasize that the image was the first of its kind, nor did it explain why it had spent three years sitting in an archive. Judging by the caption, the report’s compilers may not even have understood the scale of what they had placed in the appendix. Bureaucratic surrealism in its purest form: the most significant photograph of a secret spacecraft in a decade published as an illustration between tables.
Before October 26, Shenlong’s entire public “iconography” consisted of blurry points of light in ground-telescope images and computer renders with Chinese labels. Now analysts have an image with a resolution of roughly 4.5 centimeters per pixel. For comparison: that is enough to make out the cargo-bay doors, panel joints, and the geometry of the wing down to its kinks.
The image was taken as the spaceplane flew alongside another vehicle — one with its solar panels deployed. Nobody knows what kind of satellite it is; Space.com honestly calls it a “docking partner,” declining to gamble on a more precise function. Shenlong itself is a classic “mini-shuttle”: a delta wing with a noticeably longer chord than its American counterpart, twin-fin tail surfaces, upward-opening cargo-bay doors, dark thermal protection on its belly, and a rear service module with solar arrays. In orbit, the module supplies the vehicle with electricity and serves as its propulsion system; before deorbiting, it is jettisoned — like the X-37B’s.
The spacecraft’s lower surfaces are readable in the image well enough for specialists to make out even the bays for the struts of its tricycle landing gear. TWZ, never lacking in meticulousness, published a side-by-side comparison with an X-37B fitted with an extended cargo module in its tail — and yes, the difference is mostly visible in the wing geometry. In every other respect, the two craft are close enough that the first question on any forum is: are we sure that isn’t an X-37B? The second: whose damn satellite is that cuddling the dragon?
One separate detail worth a minute: the imaging distance. The WorldView-3 satellite snapped Shenlong from roughly 90 kilometers away — like making out a human face from the other end of a city. Pointing a commercial Earth-observation satellite’s telescope at an object coming toward you at roughly seven and a half kilometers per second is an exercise that demands a precise fix, lead time, and one single frame. Vantor offers imagery of objects in orbit as a service, but every such shot remains a one-off piece of work.
The vehicle that almost certainly is Shenlong — more on that below — has been flying since September 2020. The timeline, assembled from tracking data and the DIA report:
Since 2022, at least nine released objects have been observed: small vehicles, presumably CubeSats, whose purpose has still not been disclosed. The most striking episodes were observed by LeoLabs, which tracks low orbit with radar: on May 8, 2023, it reported multiple altitude-changing maneuvers, formation flying, and at least two or three operations involving the capture of subsatellite Object J (NORAD 54218). And in November 2022, according to the DIA, the spaceplane maneuvered with a companion satellite, approaching to roughly 100 meters — possibly capturing and re-releasing it.
And now for the most interesting part — its behavior on the current, fourth mission. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, whose work cataloging everything that flies deserves a monument of its own, recorded from open U.S. Space Force data that in June 2026 the spaceplane released an object, then in September made another close approach and, apparently, captured it again. If that really was the work of a manipulator arm, we are no longer watching “dumping debris before landing,” but rehearsing the full “release — chase — catch” cycle. In space, this style is politely called rendezvous and proximity operations. Less politely: “testing an approach to someone else’s satellite.”
Formally, the DIA reported an intriguing detail: China has two spaceplane programs — Shenlong (“divine dragon,” a CASC program launched by rocket) and Tengyun (“riding the clouds,” a CASIC concept with a two-stage air-launch configuration). The caption beneath the photo delicately avoids saying which machine is pictured. But Tengyun has not had a single confirmed flight, and the prototype in rare public images looks different. On top of that, tracking infrastructure has tied all four missions since 2020 to the same Long March 2F rocket and the same launch window at Jiuquan. So the consensus is simple: the photo shows Shenlong, and TWZ writes outright that the DIA “confirmed” exactly that.
The only known image of the dragon before orbit is a set of 2007 photographs showing a small spaceplane suspended beneath an H-6 bomber for drop tests. Almost thirteen years passed between the test article and the orbital vehicle, and throughout that time China did not release a single official photograph. They do not show the landings either: satellite imagery indicates that the vehicles land on the runway of a top-secret base in the country’s northwest — one of the longest in the world — located beside the Lop Nur nuclear test site. TWZ has already dubbed the place “China’s Area 51,” and judging by the intensity of infrastructure expansion visible in imagery, the nickname is sticking.
Incidentally, on size: Shenlong’s exact dimensions are still unknown. The X-37B is 8.8 meters long with a wingspan of 4.5 meters. The Chinese vehicle in the photograph is “slightly larger” — but exactly how much will have to wait for a reference point beside it. A funny contrast with the era when the specifications of Soviet and American vehicles were decoded by counting the steps in parade formations.
This is where the story reaches its deepest layer. The imaging became known back in November 2024: U.S. Space Force Colonel John Patrick showed the same picture — but at poor resolution — at a conference in South Korea. For two years, the image existed as a half-legend. And now an unclassified intelligence report has released it in full quality.
The logic of publication is transparently cynical. The United States has its own secret spaceplane, the X-37B — since 2010 it has completed eight missions, one of which lasted 434 days, while the military describes the vehicle’s purpose in phrases along the lines of “testing technologies.” The X-37B knows how to keep its doors to itself, too: the first official U.S. photo of an X-37B from orbit was published only in February 2025, in a high elliptical orbit where the vehicle was testing, among other things, quantum navigation. Now the Pentagon has an internationally recognized excuse to say: “Look, the Chinese are building the same thing — here’s proof,” without staging a leak of its own. A symmetrical exchange of courtesies between intelligence services, with the public playing spectator.
The shot also reveals a second layer: commercial Earth observation can now image military objects in space at centimeter-scale resolution. A private satellite targets an adversary’s secret vehicle and takes a better picture than government systems could manage ten years ago. Cat and mouse has moved beyond the state sector — and that may be the most underrated consequence of the whole story.
Let us return to the nine objects and the satellite cuddles. Analysts have three durable hypotheses, and all three are plausible in their own way.
Theory A — training targets. SpaceNews suggested exactly this after the second mission: Shenlong’s main task is rehearsing rendezvous operations, while the smaller vehicles are sparring partners for approach and capture. The “release — chase — catch” cycle McDowell is observing on the fourth mission fits perfectly.
Theory B — a servicing platform. Beijing’s official line is “testing reusable technologies and the peaceful exploration of space.” If we set aside the habit of viewing Chinese space activity exclusively through a military lens, the spaceplane is an ideal truck for orbital logistics: carry something into orbit, replace it, retrieve it, bring back to Earth what satellites have no means of returning themselves. That is precisely the role envisioned for the Chengdu Haolong vehicle — China’s third spaceplane, being developed to supply the Tiangong station.
Theory C — an inspector you cannot call an inspector. The ability to quietly pull up alongside someone else’s vehicle, examine it, and fly away is not hypothetical but an observable reality: the DIA writes outright that Chinese forces are developing anti-satellite weapons, while TWZ recalls the recent “shadowing” of a commercial radar spacecraft by a Russian satellite. Here, a spaceplane is simply the perfect tool — maneuverable, reusable, unpredictable in its schedule.
The truth, as often happens, lies somewhere in the middle. The DIA and TWZ’s overall conclusion sounds dull and honest: its purpose has not been disclosed, there is no evidence of a combat payload, but the platform can accommodate one. That may be the most accurate forecast possible: Shenlong is doing exactly what the X-37B did — keeping everyone on edge by the mere fact of its existence.
The first clear photo of Shenlong is, on the surface, a story about a photograph. At depth, it is three separate stories in one frame. First: China’s reusable spaceflight has stopped being concept art and become serial practice — four missions, eight hundred days, work with objects in orbit. Second: commercial Earth-observation satellites now chronicle secret programs better than any intelligence service, and a single 4.5-centimeter-per-pixel image has done more than years of press conferences. Third: the mere existence of a “spaceplane — satellite cuddling alongside it” pair says that orbit is slowly becoming a place where vehicles do not simply fly past one another, but work with one another — and it does not matter whether that is called servicing or something less hospitable.
And meanwhile, the dragon continues its fourth mission. Somewhere up there, above our heads, its doors are open, an unnamed companion is flying beside it, and nobody — neither the DIA, nor LeoLabs, nor McDowell — knows exactly what it is about to do next. The perfect series: eight hundred episodes, zero spoilers.
Sources: DIA “Challenges to Security in Space 2026” (dia.mil); Ars Technica, Stephen Clark, 27.10.2026; Space.com, Brett Tingley, 28.10.2026; Live Science, Harry Baker, 28.10.2026; The Aviationist, 27.10.2026; TWZ, 27.10.2026; SpaceNews, Andrew Jones, 07.02.2026; LeoLabs (08.05.2023), Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589, 23.09.2026).