China's top-secret spaceplane can't hide in low-Earth orbit

What happened

The DIA's threat assessment suggests China may soon place directed energy weapons in space. The Chinese spaceplane has delta wings, payload bay doors, a dark heat shield, and a rear-mounted service module with power-generating solar arrays.

In other words, the design of the winged ship is, to a great degree, a copy of the X-37B spaceplane flown by the US Space Force. The photo was taken by a commercial imaging satellite owned by a company called Vantor, known as Maxar in 2024.