China's Space Plane May Have Capacity To Retrieve Satellites

America's secret space plane, the Boeing X-37B, is thought to have inspired China to construct a similar craft.

Photo Insert: China's space program has seen significant advances of late.

After nine months in orbit, China's space plane has landed for the second time, making the nation one of the few to successfully launch and recover a reusable spacecraft, Joanna Thompson reported for Live Science.

"The complete success of this experiment marks a significant breakthrough in our country's research on reusable spacecraft technology," Xinhua reported earlier this month.

The Chinese government has released very little information about the craft and the details of its design, capabilities, and performance remain hazy. Experts think the Chinese plane is likely similar to the Boeing X-37B, a U.S. space plane that debuted in 2010.

Kevin Pollpeter, a research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, told Nature.com that the reveal of X-37B sparked concern within the Chinese government over the craft's military potential.

It's possible that this spurred the country's space program, which is closely tied to its military, to start developing its own version, Pollpeter said.

A report from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said the craft released an "object" into orbit sometime in October.

The object apparently disappeared in January, only to reappear on satellite tracking radar in March. Experts believe this could indicate that the plane has some sort of satellite removal capability, such as a robotic arm.

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