China's 'secretive' spacecraft returns to Earth after 9 months orbital mission

China is steadily making progress in the space race with the US. Its recent space achievement came on Monday after its ‘secretive’ reusable spacecraft landed back in Earth’s orbit after nine months.

With a number of moon missions, its own space station in Earth’s orbit, and a historic Mars mission that included an orbiter, a lander, and a rover — the first-ever Martian trifecta — China has generally increased its space presence during the past ten years.

The 276-day journey was hailed as a “success” and an “important breakthrough” by the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

In August 2022, the spacecraft was launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The new space plane’s nine-month voyage was its longest.

According to Andrew Jones, a writer who focuses on China’s space program, it had only ever previously travelled to orbit for two days.

Despite the recent flight’s length, China has only made brief announcements about the spacecraft, providing no information on the mission’s goals, the spacecraft’s characteristics, or the manoeuvres it carried out in orbit.

In a brief statement on Monday, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua said that the experiment’s success “marks an important breakthrough in China’s research on reusable spacecraft technologies, which will provide more practical and cost-effective round-trip methods for the peaceful use of space in the future.”

China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), the company that created the spacecraft, reposted the Xinhua announcement on the social media site Weixin.

The “experimental” spacecraft reportedly landed down at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, according to Xinhua.

However, according to Jones, orbital tracking information and satellite pictures indicate that the landing took place at the Lop Nur military installation in the nearby province of Xinjiang, to the west.

Spacecraft that can be reused are nothing new. The most well-known example is perhaps NASA’s Space Shuttles. Billionaire Richard Branson recently took a Virgin Galactic spacecraft into orbit.

According to Space.com, the Chinese spacecraft launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in August 2022 and unexplainably launched something into orbit in October.

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