Mystery surrounds China’s mini space shuttle that has just made its maiden flight

In just two days, President Xi Jinping has sent his first space shuttle into space and brought it back to Earth, a clear challenge to the hegemony still held by the United States in the outer world. 

The launch of the spacecraft which China describes as "experimental" and "reusable" took place surprisingly and under the strictest secrecy in the early hours of Friday 3 September from the Jiuquan Launch Centre in the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia, northwest China. 

The spacecraft ascended into space housed inside the top of a 62-metre high 2F Long-Range rocket, the model launcher Beijing uses to send astronauts on missions into space. On board was a small orbital vehicle of similar size and weight to the military X-37B that the United States has been keeping at an altitude of 390 kilometres around the Earth since mid-May. 

All that has been revealed by the state news agency Xinhua is that the reusable experimental spacecraft "will test reusable technologies during its flight, providing technological support for the peaceful use of space" and that it would land in China "once its activity in orbit is completed".  

The scant data disseminated assume that it is a space vehicle around 10 metres long, weighing around 5 tonnes and equipped with wings, to be able to manoeuvre in the atmosphere during its return trajectory to Earth. A second communiqué dated Sunday, September 6, confirmed the success of the descent to Earth which, according to Xinhua, took place "two days after the launch". 

Xinhua's communications indicate that the success of the mission will make it possible to offer flights "to and from civilians", as well as "to transport astronauts, resupply orbital stations and put satellites into orbit at a lower cost". However, the mystery surrounding the mission so far suggests that it could be a dual-purpose shuttle, also designed for military purposes and therefore subject to strict security measures. 

Neither the Xinhua agency nor the official television channels or social networks have so far shown images or footage of the spacecraft. The name of the spacecraft, its main characteristics and the place of landing are also unknown. However, as the Beijing authorities are used to dosing information on space issues, it is foreseeable that in the coming days images of the small shuttle, its characteristics and the specific object of its inaugural mission will be broadcast. 

The spy satellites that provide images to the US Department of Defense intelligence agencies detected that the Chinese spacecraft had reached an orbit of nearly 350 kilometres, where it released an unidentified object shortly before starting the return manoeuvre to our planet.  

Pentagon specialists fear that it may be an experimental micro-satellite with the capacity to interfere with or block the emissions of other space platforms. They have also located the landing site of the small orbital vehicle, a 5-kilometre runway located in the middle of the sand desert of Taklamakan, in central Asia.  

Although the take-off was unexpected, the US secret services knew beforehand that China was preparing a major space mission. The Pentagon's electro-optical and radar spy satellites had identified months ago that major work was being carried out on the launch ramp of the 2F long-range rocket in Jiuquan.  

The American image analysts had deduced that the modifications observed were due to the need to place on top of the rocket a load of greater size and weight than the manned Shenzhou space capsules and Tiangong space laboratories with which the Chinese astronauts have travelled and lived beyond our blue planet. 

In recent weeks, two indications had confirmed the need for the electronic eyes of Washington's spy satellites to focus on the Jiuquan Cosmodrome. Firstly, the departure of the Yuanwang space tracking ships. Deployed in the Arabian Sea and the South Atlantic, near the coast of South America, their large on-board antennas are responsible for following the trajectory of the launcher and the spacecraft around the Earth, to provide the control centre with the correct telemetry at every moment of the flight.  

The definitive piece of information that alerted the Pentagon to the imminent take-off occurred a few dates before September 3, when the Chinese authorities responsible for air traffic management notified all airlines of the closure of the airspace around the Jiuquan space base. 

Western analysts estimate that China's leading space industry institution, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), intends to have a kind of civil-military space plane, capable of carrying cargo and crews, ready by the 2030s. If this is achieved, China would be on the way to closing one of the major gaps separating it from the United States in the field of space flight. But, at present, it is still far from achieving this. 

The US space agency, NASA, developed five large manned space shuttles in the second half of the 1970s: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. Measuring about 100 metres in length and weighing about 100 tonnes, they flew between November 1982 and July 2011 and transported hundreds of astronauts on round trips to the Soviet Mir orbital complex and the current International Space Station. China is still far from achieving such developments.