“A Long March 2F rocket launched the orbital spaceplane into low Earth orbit from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert Feb. 7 local time. The spacecraft then raised its orbit to a roughly circular 593-kilometer altitude.”
“LeoLabs stated it detected an ‘unknown object in the vicinity of the Chinese Shenlong reusable spaceplane,’ at 10:30 p.m. Eastern, June 21 (0230 UTC, June 22) in a June 22 post on social media platform X. The post stated that the object was first observed by LeoLabs’ Kiwi Space Radar tracking radar in New Zealand and did not correlate to any other object in the firm’s catalog.”
“The object had not yet appeared in the Space-track catalog maintained by U.S. Space Force as of the time of reporting.”
“The detection of the object follows a pattern of China’s spaceplane releasing subsatellites after reaching orbit. The spaceplane’s second and third orbital missions included the main spacecraft appearing to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations (RPOs) with the released objects.”