Defense Intelligence Agency publishes commercial photograph of China’s classified spaceplane

A commercial imaging satellite operated by Maxar Technologies, now called Vantor, photographed China’s classified reusable spaceplane in orbit in 2024.

The Defense Intelligence Agency placed the photograph on page 53 of its 130-page unclassified report, Challenges to Security in Space. The report assesses threats to the United States in space, and its publication made the image broadly available to the public for the first time.

Observers in the West use the names Shenlong and Divine Dragon for the craft, while Chinese state media call it Chongfu Shiyong Shiyan Hangtian Qi, a name that literally means reusable experimental spacecraft. The caption in the DIA report does not name the spacecraft, and officials have not confirmed the Shenlong label. The document pairs Shenlong with a separate Tengyun spaceplane concept, so the exact identity remains uncertain.

The state-owned China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, which produces both civilian and military space launch vehicles, built the vehicle. China has shared little public information about the spaceplane’s technical details or purpose throughout development.

The debut flight in 2020 lasted roughly two days and ended at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, while the second mission lifted off in August 2022 and stayed in orbit for 276 days. The third mission started in December 2023 and concluded in September 2024 following roughly 268 days in orbit. The fourth mission lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on February 7, 2026, as a technology-verification flight, and it remains in orbit.

It moves through orbit at more than 17,000 miles per hour. Its visible traits include delta wings, a dark heat shield, central payload bay doors, twin vertical tails, and a rear module carrying two solar arrays, a layout like a miniature robotic space shuttle. Photographers used non-Earth imaging, aiming telescopes skyward as the two orbits crossed at that speed.

Both vehicles launch vertically inside a rocket shroud, stay in orbit for months or years, and land on a runway after coming back to Earth. People describe both as small robotic versions of the NASA Space Shuttle. The X-37B measures 29 feet in length, has flown eight classified missions, and its current flight has gone past 431 days. The Space Force flies two X-37B vehicles in rotation, and their longest eight-mission run lasted two-and-a-half years; the vehicle has covered more than 24,000 miles from Earth on its flights.

According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the vehicle released an object during the 2023 flight and then made contact with it. Tracking by Jonathan McDowell shows the current flight released a sub-satellite in June, brought it back in July, and did the same again in August and September.

The agency said the enhanced maneuverability of spaceplanes makes them more suitable than traditional satellites for some missions. The agency also said Beijing probably sees directed-energy weapons as ideal counterspace systems for disabling hardware in orbit. China operates multiple ground-based laser weapons meant to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites in low Earth orbit, and it may deploy space-based systems by the late 2020s.

Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation said close-proximity operations could serve as weapons or counterspace tools or remain non-aggressive. Her remarks address the dual-use nature of close-proximity maneuvers.

U.S. officials said Russia is working on nuclear space capabilities and its Nivelir system, and they moved a satellite within tens of meters of a commercial radar craft from Ukraine. The United States has acknowledged fielding orbital weapons and inspector satellites.

China has not announced or confirmed that it deployed objects released by the spaceplane, even though the U.S. military has cataloged them, and some of the released objects emitted signals while in orbit. No public evidence indicates the photographed vehicle carries a weapon configuration. The vehicle has also carried out capture and docking, flown in formation, and landed horizontally on a runway. The public record does not reveal the size of China’s spaceplane inventory.

Before the DIA assessment, the public had already seen lower-resolution views showing the vehicle’s general shape, and a U.S. Space Force official disclosed what Maxar had observed at an event in South Korea in 2024. The full-resolution image became public alongside the unclassified Defense Intelligence Agency assessment.

Monitoring classified space programs has become an increasingly important use of commercial satellite imagery. With commercial cameras constantly watching from above, even the most secretive orbital machines are finding it harder to remain out of sight, and the image offers the public its first clear look at a vehicle that circulated in near-total secrecy for years.