Category: Launches & Spacecraft

China's Shenlong space plane appears to have released a mystery object while in orbit, according to a private space surveillance firm.

Shenlong launched on its fourth mission on Feb. 6, 2026 atop a Long March 2F rocket that lifted off from China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert. As with previous flights, the objectives of this mission were not disclosed to the public. But according to recent observations by the commercial orbital intelligence company LeoLabs, one part of Shenlong's latest mission appears to involve releasing an unknown object.

"At 02:30 UTC on 22 June 2026, LeoLabs detected an unknown object in the vicinity of the Chinese Shenlong reusable space plane," LeoLabs posted to X. "This object did not correlate to any other object in our catalog. It was first observed by our Tracker radar in New Zealand."

"Following additional observations across our global network and analysis via LeoLabs Delta, we have independently cataloged this object and assessed with high confidence that it was released from the Chinese space plane," the company added in the post. "This activity is consistent with sub-satellite deployments conducted by the space plane in previous missions."

Space tracker Jonathan McDowell noted on X that the object has now been catalogued by the U.S. Space Force.

Shenlong, or "Divine Dragon," is a reusable space plane that launches atop a rocket but lands on a runway like an aircraft. Its overall design is believed to be similar to the United States Space Force's X-37B, or somewhat like NASA's storied space shuttle. Exact specifications are difficult to come by, given how secretive China's space program remains about Shenlong.

Very few images exist of Shenlong, and most of what we have seen of the space plane are telescopic images of the vehicle taken from ground-based telescopes.

This isn't the first time that Shenlong has appeared to release objects while in orbit. In June 2024, observers noticed that the space plane may have released a subsatellite or ejected an unnecessary piece of hardware as it approached the end of its mission.

Six months earlier, observers believed the space plane had ejected six objects at once, but those were later determined to be debris left over from launch.

Observers on the ground have also noticed what appear to be solar arrays extending from Shenlong, based on analysis of telescope imagery.

On previous missions, Shenlong has appeared to conduct what are known as rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), meaning it tested the capability to maneuver close to other objects in space, according to SpaceNews.

White these RPOs can be conducted for peaceful purposes such as repairing or refueling other spacecraft, it might also be the case that space superpowers such as China and Russia are developing these capabilities to potentially tamper with adversary satellites should warfare ever make it to space. In May, two Russian satellites came within 10 feet (3 meters) of one another in orbit, following a pattern of the country testing the capabilities of these so-called "inspector" spacecraft.

There's no reason to believe the United States isn't developing its own RPO capabilities for similar reasons, and the nation has released official artwork suggesting as much.

SpaceX's newest spaceflight tech has to launched to the final frontier for the first time.

The company's Starfall capsule took to the skies on its debut mission today (June 23), following SpaceX's application with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for two reentry vehicle landings. The mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 6:52 a.m. EDT (1052 GMT).

Starfall is a cargo transportation vehicle designed to carry payloads to low Earth orbit (LEO) and beyond, aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, and also return materials safely back to Earth. The platform isn't designed to fly human passengers; it's geared toward the support of research or other payloads that require retrieval after a stint in space, such as pharmaceuticals and other products of orbital manufacturing.

The concept has already been put into practice by Varda Space, which has landed five of its 3-foot-wide (0.9 meters), roughly 650-pound (300 kilograms) conical "W-series" capsules to date, one of which returned a payload for the U.S. Air Force after more than eight weeks on orbit. Starfall is more than three times as large, measuring 10 feet (3.1 m) across and 2.5 feet (0.75 m) tall. The SpaceX vehicle can carry up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) of payload.

Starfall has two primary sections, which separate after reentry: a top plate for payload storage and attitude control components, and a carbon fiber heat shield that stores compressed gas to power attitude control maneuvers needed for precise reentries and landings, heat shield jettison and parachute deployment, according to SpaceX's FAA filing.

SpaceX plans to launch Starfall on suborbital missions, in addition to the longer-term stretches it will be able to spend in LEO. The capsule lacks a propulsion system and is incapable of deorbiting itself. The FAA document is unclear about how this will be accomplished, but it's likely that this launch will use Falcon 9's second stage to bring the demo capsule back to Earth.

In the event that Starfall experiences some sort of issue in space or during reentry, SpaceX has designed the spacecraft for safe expendability. "Capsules use nonhazardous inert cold gas (nitrogen) for attitude control and contain no liquid propellants or hazardous substances. All pressurized systems would be vented prior to splashdown, therefore, no propellants would be released into the ocean," the company says in the FAA document.

SpaceX has not yet specified how long it plans to keep the test Starfall vehicle in orbit on this debut mission, and did not broadcast views of the Falcon 9 second stage after separation from the rocket's booster. When the Starfall payload returns, SpaceX is targeting an area in the Pacific Ocean for splashdown, about 700 nautical miles (1,300 km) off the United States West Coast.

On the opposite side of the U.S., the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the Starfall demo mission headed for a return in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the 29th flight for this particular booster, tail number 1078, whose previous experience includes NASA's Crew-6 launch to the International Space Station, a Space Force mission and 23 Starlink launches, among others. Following stage separation, about 2.5 minutes after liftoff, Booster 1078 fine-tune its trajectory for a landing burn and touchdown on the SpaceX autonomous droneship "A Shortfall of Gravitas" downrange in the Atlantic, touching down about T+9 minutes.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 7:10 a.m. EDT to reflect the successful launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Starfall demonstration mission.

The heavy hitters in space telescopes are about to be joined by a new contender.

NASA's Nancy Roman Grace Space Telescope arrived at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida, on Sunday (June 21), for final tests ahead of launching later this summer. Roman was shipped to KSC from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, riding the agency's Pegasus barge from Baltimore to the Space Coast.

KSC is Roman's final stop before launching to space aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket where it will join other flagship observatories like Hubble, Webb, Chandra and Spitzer. NASA is currently targeting an Aug. 30 liftoff — eight weeks ahead of its original schedule. Before that date arrives, Roman will undergo tests inside KSC's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF), where upgrades were recently completed to prepare for the telescope's arrival.

Roman, inside a specialized, environmentally-controlled protective container used to encapsulate the telescope at the start of its journey from Goddard, was transported to the exterior of the PHSF building following its KSC arrival, where teams began a decontamination and cleaning process to ready the container for opening today (June 22) inside the PHSF airlock, followed by the unboxing and transportation of the roughly 18,000-pound (8,200-kilogram) spacecraft to the high bay clean room for prelaunch preparations.

Roman's work platform inside the PHSF, which NASA refers to as "the Pantheon" will allow engineers to perform final checkouts on the spacecraft, including tests of the telescope's six solar panels, insulation, and heat management components. Technicians will also load Roman with about 290 gallons (1,100 liters) of hypergolic hydrazine fuel, which will power the satellite's thrusters for delivery to its final orbit and small positional adjustments during the ten or more years the propellant is expected to last.

Roman is headed to Sun-Earth Lagrange point two (L2), a station-keeping point about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) beyond Earth on the side opposite the sun. Lagrange points are regions of space similar to where the gravitational influence of two or more bodies is equal, allowing spacecraft to be "parked" and remain in place without needing to fire their thrusters and expend fuel. Once it settles in at L2, Roman's mission is set to last for at least five years, with the option for NASA to extend the telescope's use as long as its fuel lasts and instruments perform as needed.

Using its 7.9-foot-wide (2.4 meters) primary mirror, combined with a 300-megapixel camera and coronograph, Roman's primary mission will be hunting down the elusive mysteries of dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe through the discovery of "billions of galaxies, hundreds of thousands of new exoplanets, hundreds of blackholes, and … vast volumes of daily data for astronomers to study," according to NASA.