Erik Simonsen via Getty
The Chinese space program dropped a surprise—and mysterious—object in Earth’s orbit, fueling speculation for what the nature of the payload might be.
China launched a spaceplane on August 4 using its Long March 2F rocket, and it has been in orbit for roughly three months, SpaceNews reports. Its trajectory has been closely associated with an unknown payload. The U.S. Space Force initially tracked the object near the spaceplane, after which Space-Track.org, an orbital objects database, logged an entry for it on October 21.
The origins of the package are still unknown, and China has yet to make a statement about it. Harvard University astronomer Jonathan McDowell speculated on Twitter that it could be a service module, which might have previously contained fuel or supplies for the spaceplane but is now trash to be burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. This would also mean that the spacecraft itself is ready to deorbit and land back on terra firma.
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