China launches a SECRETIVE reusable spacecraft to orbit Earth

In a secret mission, China launched a reusable Long March 2F carrier rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Know all the details here.

China launched its second reusable spacecraft to Earth orbit. (Representative Image) (REUTERS)

A few days ago, an uncontrolled Chinese rocket debris made the headlines with its unpredictable crash back to the Earth! Thankfully, the remnants of the Chinese space booster burned up following its entry into the atmosphere and the rest were reported to crash into the Indian ocean. Now, soon after this tragic incident, China launched a classified reusable vehicle on a mystery mission to Earth orbit on August 4. This comes from the Chinese media agency Xinhua which confirms that a Long March 2F carrier rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert. It is said to be the 18th launch mission of the Long March 2F carrier rocket.

"The test spacecraft will be in orbit for a period of time before returning to the scheduled landing site in China, during which reusable and in-orbit service technology verification will be carried out as planned to provide technical support for the peaceful use of space," Xinhua mentioned on its website. 

China kept the latest spacecraft launch a secret 

That's all Xinhua updated about China's mysterious spacecraft launch. A SpaceNews report mentioned that this mystery spacecraft by China is considered to be a robotic space plane that shares the same size as the US Space Force's X-37B based on the payload capacity of Long March 2F. However, this is not the first time when China launched a reusable spacecraft. Earlier, back in September 2020, China had launched its reusable test spacecraft in a similar secret event.

A space.com report compares the latest mystery mission of China with the X-37B spacecraft, which has been orbiting Earth for more than 800 days. The launch was part of an extremely busy day in spaceflight as there were six rocket launches, starting from Rocket Lab's lofting of a spy satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office to a United Launch Alliance Atlas V which launched a missile-warning satellite for the Space Force. Besides that, Blue Origin sent six people to suborbital space, China launched another TECIS 1 Earth-observation satellite, and Danuri moon probe of South Korea.