The clearest public photo yet of Shenlong, China’s largely secret reusable space plane, has surfaced in a new U.S. intelligence report.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) included the image in its latest “Challenges to Security in Space” report.
Maxar Technologies (now Vantor) took the photo in 2024. It shows the space plane from below, with solar panels opened out from an attached aft service module.
The report only labels it as a “PRC Spaceplane.” Independent space analysts and defense observers, however, say it is almost certainly Shenlong, since no other Chinese vehicle matches it.
A history of covert missions
China announced the project close to two decades ago and has said little about it since. Shenlong’s first known flight was in 2020 and lasted two days. Its second, in 2022, kept it in orbit for 276 days.
The plane launched on a third mission in December 2023 and spent 268 days in space, so the photo was likely taken during that flight. The DIA notes that Shenlong “released and interacted with an object” while in orbit, but the agency did not say what the object in question was.
For its fourth mission, Shenlong reportedly went up again on Feb. 7, 2026, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, and is thought to still be in orbit.
The U.S. Space Force meanwhile operates the rival space plane, the Boeing-built X-37B. The vehicle is currently on its eighth mission and has been in orbit for more than 431 days. The Space Force maintains that the craft is testing laser communications and quantum sensors on this specific flight. Most other details about the X-37B are classified.
Beyond the space plane, the DIA report runs 130 pages and outlines threats facing the U.S. and its allies in space, including from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
Sources: DIA, Space Force, Xinhua, Popular Science