A new U.S. intelligence agency report has seemingly released the first clear photograph of China's mysterious "dragon" space plane in orbit around Earth. The surprise snap reveals that the top-secret vehicle is very similar to its American counterpart and provides new clues about its capabilities.

The image is widely believed to show China's secretive Shenlong, or "divine dragon," space plane, which has been in action for just over six years. During this time, the reusable winged spacecraft has repeatedly made headlines after deploying various unidentified objects in low Earth orbit (LEO). As a result, government officials, private companies and individual researchers have closely monitored the vehicle using tools such as ground-based radar.

Until now, the only direct images of the space plane have been blurry snaps of light reflecting off the uncrewed vehicle toward Earth's surface — offering no clear clues to its specific design, capabilities or intended purpose. China has also never publicly shared any photos of the vehicle or revealed any key information about its design.

On Monday (Oct. 26), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released the latest version of its "Challenges to Security in Space" report, which assesses the various factors that pose a risk to American space assets. Deep within the 130-page document (on page 53), the authors included a previously unseen image of a "PCR [People's Republic of China] Spaceplane." The image's brief caption revealed that the photo had been taken in 2024 by a satellite belonging to the private space company Maxar Technologies, now known as Vantor.

The surprise inclusion of the photo was spotted and shared on the social platform X by journalist Andrew Jones, who specializes in China's space program and has previously shared crucial information about other ongoing missions.

Neither the caption nor the related section of the report made any mention of the photo being the first of its kind or explained why it was previously classified, raising questions about whether the authors realized its significance.

There is one small caveat. The report notes that China has two active space plane designs — Shenlong and Tengyun, meaning "cloud rider" — and the image's caption does not specify which design we are looking at, according to The Aviationist.

However, there have been no confirmed launches of Tengyun to date. Existing photos of a potential prototype also hint that this vehicle's design looks markedly different from what we can see in the new photo. Therefore, most experts agree that the spacecraft in the image is most likely Shenlong.

What does the new photo tell us?

Until now, all we really knew about Shenlong is that it operates similarly to NASA's iconic space shuttles: It gets launched into space by a rocket and circles Earth before eventually gliding down to the planet's surface, where it can then be refueled and relaunched into LEO.

It is not the world's only active space plane. The U.S. Space Force has its own, the X-37B, which has already completed seven orbital missions since its first launch in 2010 and is currently in LEO experimenting with quantum navigation. Based on the new photos, Shenlong shares many similarities with its American counterpart.

"The Chinese spaceplane has delta wings, payload bay doors, a dark heat shield, and a rear-mounted service module with power-generating solar arrays," technology news site ArsTechnica reported. "In other words, the design of the winged ship is, to a great degree, a copy of the X-37B spaceplane flown by the U.S. Space Force."

However, the two spacecraft are not exactly the same: "The overall arrangement resembles the American vehicle, although differences in wing geometry show that the two spacecraft are not externally identical," according to specialist news site Global Defense News.

It is still unclear how large Shenlong is. The X-37B is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and has a wingspan of 15 feet (4.5 m), according to Popular Science.

The new image also indicates that Shenlong is most likely not a military asset, Global Defense News reported, noting that "the image does not establish a weapons role."

However, China likely has other space-based weapons, similar to the mysterious "in-orbit" American weapons recently confirmed by U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink.

"China has developed and will continue to advance weapons for use against satellites in orbit to disrupt, damage, and destroy other nations' space capabilities," DIA representatives wrote in a separate section of the new report. "Beijing aims to become the preeminent leader in space," they added.

The Shenlong story so far

Since first launching into space on an initial two-day mission in September 2020, Shenlong has completed two feature-length missions: an eight-month stint in LEO between August 2022 and May 2023, and a nine-month spaceflight between December 2023 and September 2024. (The new image was taken during the latter mission).

The space plane is currently on its fourth mission, which launched Feb. 7 on board a Long March 2F rocket from China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Live Science's sister site Space.com previously reported. In total, Shenlong has racked up more than 800 days in orbit. However, it is unclear whether the same space plane was used on all four missions or if China has more than one space plane in use.

So far, Shelong has released at least nine unidentified payloads around Earth. These objects are most likely small satellites, known as cubesats, but their purpose remains unclear.

The most recent object was deployed in June this year, although astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who specializes in tracking spacecraft in LEO, has since suggested that the spacecraft retrieved the object, potentially with a robotic arm, and rereleased it in late August.

The new report also mentions that the space plane "appeared to maneuver with a companion satellite" during its second mission in November 2022, coming within 330 feet (100 m) of the smaller spacecraft and potentially even capturing and re-releasing it.

This may support an existing theory that the main goal of Shenlong is to "conduct rendezvous and proximity operations" with other spacecraft, and that its payloads may be targets for it to practice flyby maneuvers in orbit.