At around 3 p.m. ET on May 24, China's mysterious Shenlong space plane released an unidentified flying object 372 miles above Earth's surface. Experts outside China don't know exactly what the object is, but they believe it may be a small satellite or a piece of hardware ejected before the craft is scheduled to deorbit.
Shenlong deployed six smaller objects shortly after launch last year; each appeared to be emitting some kind of signal. So far, Chinese officials have remained secretive about the plane and its activities, and have not addressed the nature of the mystery objects or even acknowledged them. Meanwhile, the U.S. military's X-37B space plane is also in Earth's orbit. The craft launched on Dec. 28 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The fact that the two missions are operating simultaneously is"probably no coincidence," Space Force Chief of Space Operations B. Chance Saltzman told Air & Space Forces magazine.